


Panacea

by Arnediad



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: & Genesis swearing like a sailor, Angeal being cute, Angst, E rating due to: emotional extremes, Enormous Emotional Baggage, Everyone Needs A Hug, Genesis as a Dad is probably awkward and weird, Hojo is still around; thats important, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of past abuse, Mentions of past mpreg, References to self harm/suicide, Tags Subject to Mutation, kind of a kid fic but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:55:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 25
Words: 107,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22509682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arnediad/pseuds/Arnediad
Summary: Panacea:In Greek mythology, it is a universal antidote that washes away all maladies and grants the drinker immortality, though the literal translation derives from’panakeia’; which means’cure-all.’Losing the love of your life is hard, losing the love of your life and raising the child you made together is harder. Losing the love of your life and raising the child you made together in a post-miltarian dystopia is probably the literal definition of hell.
Relationships: Angeal Hewley/OC, Genesis Rhapsodos/Sephiroth, Zack Fair/Aerith Gainsborough
Comments: 38
Kudos: 71





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> *Notes on repost at the culmination of reposting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Please note that Panacea is part of a series called 'Black Nebula' link here: https://archiveofourown.org/series/918831

_Grief, you are the grey huntress;_

_with a bow of tragedy and arrows of loss._

_Your garb is the dusky mantle of sorrow;_

_trailing crystalline teardrops like strings of pearls._

_Your footsteps mar our joys with devastation;_

_bringing whispers of sadness to our sunlit morrows._

_And you hunt us...in the glades of our existence..._

_...to slay us broken and weeping...under the eves of our regrets._

* * *

“Hey, _Dad?_ ”

Genesis woke with a snort. That wasn’t unusual, but it was unusual to find himself sitting in a room that was on the wrong side of _too pink_ with a poster of _Verdwurd and the Humming Hacking Virus Bros_ across from him. He was very open about music, but any band that could turn bacterium into symbolistic euphemisms for romance was just a little bit weird. He didn’t care if chickenpox was a type of herpes, it was just disgusting. Apparently, he had seen fit to fall asleep in a teenage girl’s room. Normally, many years ago, this would have been cause for extreme alarm. Thankfully, the teenager in question was under his custody; mostly because she was his kid. There were days he was very grateful for that, and there were days when he wanted to kick down all the walls because of it. Shifting his person in the fluffy magenta bean bag chair he had evidently decided to nod off on, the redhead blinked stupidly at the star-covered ceiling and tried to discern what time it was.

It was his day off, that much was certain.

Of course, the definition of a ‘day off’ when you were a parent differed greatly from that of the single and unattached person with no one to clean after but themselves. Thankfully, the person he occasionally had to clean after did a fair enough job of it herself. Occasionally, he missed the toddler days, but then he remembered exactly what a whole bowl of spaghetti looked like smeared across the kitchen floor and he was extremely happy with his current existence. That didn’t mean, however, that he spent his days off doing extracurricular things like skydiving and dancing until dawn. Looking at the unchanged reflection of himself in the mirror across from him, Genesis told himself firmly that it didn’t matter how old his body told itself it was; he was still forty-six. He might look and feel about twenty-four, but he was nearly fifty and he could not act like he’d just passed the legal drinking age. He had to set a good example even if he didn’t know what he was doing half of the time and the other half he was barely getting by.

“Dad, c’mon.”

Rubbing a hand over his face, the scarlet-haired man watched as the beads curtaining the entrance to his daughter’s room parted to reveal the aforementioned individual. Saoirse paused, one hand on the strap of her book bag as green eyes surveyed him sardonically for a moment before they promptly rolled. Genesis reflected dryly that if he’d rolled his eyes at Shikro he’d have been lucky to be able to peel himself off the dining room floor the next morning. He was, quite firmly, against hitting children simply because of his own memories of it being done to him. That didn’t stop him from wanting to scream every time his ‘little girl’ gave him some attitude. As a fifteen-year-old, she gave him quite a bit of attitude but he’d managed to keep his sanity hanging by a thread so far. Watching as she knelt to tuck her book bag into a cubby, Genesis yawned and then winced when his jaw cracked.

“Didn’t we have a discussion about privacy?” Saoirse said dryly.

Blinking, the former Commander made a face.

“We did” he replied hoarsely. “But we also had a discussion about cleaning up.” He gestured at the feminine disarray around him. “You know I love a little bit of spontaneity, but it looks like you had a brawl with a pink chocobo and then decided to go to school anyway.”

His daughter’s lips twitched furiously in a way that was so similar to someone else it made his chest ache a little bit before he pushed it down. Settling her expression into that of neutrality, Saoirse got to her feet once more and folded her arms.

“Well, it doesn’t look like you got any cleaning done in here either” she pointed out.

“I had to sit down to meditate upon the horror around me” Genesis replied firmly.

A scarlet brow winged upward.

“You fell asleep” was the dry response.

“I fainted.” A pale hand rose to cover smiling lips as emerald eyes crinkled at the edges. “The strain was too much for me.”

Seeming to give up all pretense of stubborness, the redhead before him laughed helplessly for a minute or so before regaining herself. As she did so, Genesis watched with a kind of fond affection. She was tall, for her age anyway, though he supposed that that shouldn’t surprise him. Her hair was long; he’d despaired of cutting it when he tried for her eighth birthday and she proceeded to throw a fit so massive his ears rang for three hours afterwards. Most of the time she let him style it and he tried not to think about how terrible he was at doing so initially when he stopped to consider the fact. He had several grade school pictures of her with lopsided pigtails that were entirely his fault. In terms of features, she looked more like him...which he supposed wasn’t to her benefit because he had a more angular bone structure than tha of her other father.

Her cheeks, however, were high like his former partner’s...and her eyebrows were the same straight and severe shape. When it came to style, Genesis was sincerely proud that he had managed to sell blue jeans in a manner than appealed to her more than mini-skirts. He was fairly sure if his daughter left the house wearing booty shorts every day he would be a nervous wreck. The fact that he had worn booty shorts in his youth was irrelevant and somewhat regretful. As it was, he had a faint suspicion that her style proclivities were more ‘one-winged-angel-oriented’; even though he was also sure that Sephiroth would have murdered anyone who painted his room pink.

Saoirse liked pop music and dancing and make up and all the things people her age were supposed to like. But she also liked martial arts and math and Genesis was horrible at math. When forced to choose between math and magic he would always choose magic. He liked makeup too, but that was another thing he was too old to pull off legally anymore so he stuck with eyeliner when he was feeling particularly fierce and that was it. They had things in common...like a love for old classical films and probably too much popcorn. He had many memories of her sleeping on the bedroom floor when she didn’t want to sleep in her room. If he was feeling terribly self-confident, he could likely say he hadn’t done a heinous job when it came to parenting her.

The first years were hard, because he was grieving. Sometimes it felt like he was grieving constantly. Sephiroth’s death was a monumental blow to his psyche and an even greater blow to his self-esteem. He had no faith in his ability to parent alone and he needed the help he was given. By the time Saoirse was one, he was more involved in her life than he had been initially. He took the time to hold her, to talk to her, to pick things out for her that he thought she might like. In some ways, he was deeply regretful of his partial-abandonment of her so close to her birth because he was forced to start from scratch; forced to build their relationship with a bond that wasn’t quite as solid as most children might have with their parents by the time the first year rolled around. And it was hard...difficult… _agonizing_ at first because every time he looked at her Sephiroth was looking back at him out of her eyes.

They moved by the time his daughter turned two.

It took him a long time to find a place that he felt was suitable for them. Money wasn't an issue; he had a decent stipend from his job...more than decent. If he really wanted to, he could retire and rest easily knowing that even if something happened to him his daughter, whatever partner she chose, his grandchildren, and his great-grandchildren would have enough money to be very comfortable. No, it was the mere concept of leaving so much behind...of leaving so many memories behind...but he managed it. In the end, he moved out of HQ and into a loft apartment in a private sector of Midgar. It was a two floor, somewhat loft-esque space; with Saoirse's bedroom being on the main floor and his up a ladder in the kitchen to the bedroom and attached bathroom overhead. He’d gone for a minimalist design; most of the walls were whitewashed shiplap broken occasionally by a tile-covered accent wall. The color scheme was bright in nature; again, with an emphasis on white with solid-hue accents. The rent was reasonable; not cheap but fair and he didn’t have any problems with the other tenants, who kept mostly to themselves.

Genesis kept very little memorabilia from his time with SOLDIER or his time afterwards. Rapier-of course-went with them, as did his leather coats because he’d rather have his throat cut than leave them behind. But he left most of his military badges with Angeal, and the rest he donated. Regretfully, he had no pictures of Sephiroth, and the media that was established during the time when SOLDIER was active had nothing kind to say about him. Most of his achievements as a General, his press photos, and his ceremonies were buried beneath the acts he had committed before _he_ was committed, and then the mass-slaughter he’d partaken in just before his death. There were-quite sensibly-no pictures of him during that time...and so what little remained of the love of his life was simply a memory and nothing more. Initially, it hurt him...because the men who were present when he passed acknowledged that their view was fallible, but there wasn’t much they could do. HQ had been dismantled mere hours afterwards, and society was left scrambling to find a foothold in a suddenly legislature-bereft world. There was no time to spread the word about Sephiroth’s innocence, about what Shinra had done. And so what little of the man he adored fell to a dark memory with the rest of the world...fell to resentment and hatred.

He had to go through the newly-revised court-systems to get a pardon.

Three years after Saoirse’s birth, Genesis was called upon to appear before a judge and give reasoning for his ‘crimes against humanity.’ Mainly for sheltering what the world perceived as a madman. He was also called to give reasoning as to why he should remain the guardian of his child. He tried. He really tried. Genesis hired a lawyer, gathered all the evidence he could-which was basically nothing-and everyone who knew him and knew Sephiroth practically fell flat on their faces to give honest and relevant accounts. He bought a suit-a proper suit, nothing with tails or tassels or any sort of frippery-and he dressed his daughter up to the best degree that his very poorly female-oriented mind could dress her. Angeal showed up at his apartment three times a day to go over proceedings and Aerith moved in with him for a bit, just for emotional support. It was a testimony to how much people wanted to make things right that he had the amount of leverage that he did...it was likely the only reason he was allowed to be a father to Saoirse.

It was still a bloodbath.

When it was clear they couldn’t question his parenting, they made him seem like a victim of Stockholm Syndrome. Sephiroth seduced him, so the courts made it out, made him father their child because it was the only thing that would make him stay, and that was what drove him to break him out. The silver-haired ex-Soldier dragged him all over the Northern Continent to keep him blind to his insanity while he was pregnant, used him to get what he wanted and then grew bored when their daughter was born. Practically in tears in the defendant’s seat; Genesis had to watch as hundreds of victims of his lover’s insanity stood up to speak against him even though they didn’t know a thing about him. There wasn’t a thing he could do...not a thing. Because despite the fact that Jenova had used the younger man, the people who spoke had still lost loved ones; had lost fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers and babes. Sephiroth’s dualized gender only alienated the jury more...only made them see him as further strange and further deserving of criticism. When his medical reports were made public for them, he was privy to the sight of their faces twisting in disgust and disbelief. And he knew then...he knew that Sephiroth would never be seen as a person who had fell victim to something so powerful it had nearly destroyed the Planet so long ago. The perpetrator of such power was invisible, they couldn’t see her, but they could see him.

...Someone, _someone_ always had to take the fall.

Genesis was pardoned, but he was pardoned on the basis of manipulation, of duress. The courthouse was located on the outskirts of the Plate, and by the time he’d managed to step numbly through the throng of reporters and screaming populace, he nearly collapsed. Because he had not done his lover justice. He had not done his daughter justice...she would grow up with the people around her telling her that her father was a monster. The day after the whole of it ended, Angeal signed him up for therapy. Mostly because he tried to hang himself from the roofbeams in his apartment. The guilt he felt was staggering, the guilt he felt for _surviving_ was staggering. Because he got to live a lie...and his lover got to be forgotten...and if he was not forgotten, he was despised. When he mustered the courage to go out several weeks later, people looked at him with pity. Like he was this little...small thing who had been dragged along in the wake of someone terrible when he was _not_ and he _had not_.

It took him a long time to get over it.

Despite all of it...he had good memories. Sweet memories, really. Memories of sitting with Saoirse while they watched the hydropower system be erected while eating too much taffy. Aerith was forced to move in with Zack, who was far too happy about it. Very recently, Zack had proposed, and Genesis had no idea how to feel about it. The church Aerith had tended her flowers in for so long was refurbished as a memorial building for the victims of Shinra’s tyranny. It was the only building left standing in what was once the slums, and he was glad to see his sister reestablished somewhere else...somewhere with more sunlight...more hope. Genesis had memories of pillow forts and sticky fingers and terrible cartoon series that he fell asleep in the middle of and woke up to with Saoirse sprawled across his lap with chocolate all over her face. He had memories of flying a kite off the veranda of Gillian’s house just outside the city and getting it stuck in a tree. There were recollections, recollections of toy stores and picking out dresses that made Aerith wrinkle her face in disgust and Angeal being a bit too manly and coming to a birthday party with rugby cleats and a baseball bat only to have his daughter love them all the same.

Genesis had memories of sitting up at night, of checking for the ‘monster’ under the bed only to find that it was a wayward moogle. He had psychic freeze-frames of his daughter hugging Lazard when he came by to drop off Genesis’ birth certificate from the Archives; of Lazard looking like he didn’t know what to do...of the guilt in his eyes and the way that he hugged her back...full of regret, of fragility and the barest hint of grief. There was the first time Tseng came to call once they got settled, the way he obviously had no great love for children but was willing to try...because of Sephiroth. So many people were trying because of Sephiroth and it was that little bit of honest goodness that gave Genesis the strength to move forward. And it broke him a little bit...that goodness. The reality that these people were only stepping forward once it was all over and done with. He knew that for some that wasn’t true; that Angeal, Gillian, Zack, and Aerith had always been there...had always tried. But the price, in his opinion, shouldn’t have been so high...the sacrifice shouldn’t have to be so great.

By the time he was remotely comfortable in public, Saoirse was gearing up for kindergarten and he was scared for her. He picked a private school; a facility that provided education up to eighth grade with good reviews, a good reputation, and a zero-tolerance stance on bullying. It was insanely expensive but it was small, it would introduce her to things slowly and that was what he wanted for her. On her first day he dressed her in a blue jumper, got her pigtails crooked, drove her to school, kissed her cheek and then cried the whole way back home. He spent the enitre day and the next day by the phone wringing his hands until Angeal called him and invited him to a deli for lunch. He brought his cell phone with him and checked it obsessively while his childhood friend ordered sandwiches in a weary kind of way and then walked him to a table to sit down. Once they did, the dark-haired former first leaned forward, looked him squarely in the eye, and opened his mouth.

_”Maybe you should think about getting a job.”_

Sitting in a booth eating a sandwich with a kind of single-minded ferocity, Genesis realized he was probably right. The problem was that he didn’t know what he wanted to do, and if he did know, he didn’t know if he was qualified to do it. He and Angeal chatted for a while longer and then he wandered home feeling full and fully lost. The redhead picked up Saoirse and she regaled him with stories of finger painting and nursery rhymes, gave him a picture to put on the fridge, and then bounced off to her room after dinner and dishes were done. He ended up volunteering as night ranger on the city outskirts. Mostly because he knew he wouldn’t be holed up in an office somewhere and it was far away from HQ. Headquarters had been repurposed as a communications building for various government sectors. The system wasn’t really definable as anything solid in terms of legislature, but taxes were fair, food wasn’t scarce and people weren’t starving. To his credit, Lazard had headed a good majority of the reform with Angeal’s help, but SOLDIER didn’t exist anymore, and once everything was established the dark-haired former First took a job in the police force. Genesis was beginning to suspect he had a girlfriend, because he’d started getting a bit shifty-eyed when the redhead asked about his love life.

Recovery for Angeal was an entirely different story.

Genesis had been somewhat aware that his childhood friend was tortured. He still wasn’t entirely cognizant of the _extent_ to which he was tortured, but he had a fairly good idea. Unlike himself, Angeal did go to therapy. As far as the redhead was aware, he was still going to therapy...and if it worked for him, great. There were still times when his former fellow Commander’s eyes grew distance; when they were standing in loud traffic or when they were in a gathering of large people. They’d discussed it...a little bit, but Angeal wasn’t the type to unburden himself freely...especially when the person who was asking had what he perceived as ‘enough to deal with.’ It took a lot of poking and prodding to get him to admit he was suffering from retrograde amnesia brought on by extreme trauma in the first place. The redhead was left with little choice but to be as supportive as possible...as much as possible. If this meant he dragged Saoirse over the ‘Uncle Angeal’s’ house every Thursday and let her slather his couch with ketchup, so be it.

The night ranger job didn’t last long.

Despite the dissolution of SOLDIER, the Planet still needed some type of military presence. Wutai was peaceful, but sometimes they thought they were too big for their britches and somebody had to be there to knock them down when they got the urge to invade Mideel. Zack ended up approaching him with the idea of forming a government branch dedicated to universal security and Genesis told him to go fuck himself several times before taking up the position of what amounted to a field sergeant despite the fact that nobody called it that. He hadn’t had to kill anyone yet-and he was eternally grateful for it-and for the most part things were quiet. If he had to ship out, it was usually on weekends when Saoirse could stay at a friend’s, with Gillian, or with Aerith and Zack.

Hojo was nowhere to be found.

It niggled at him. Mostly because he knew the man well enough that he was fully aware that this was a bad thing. Eventually, what he was doing would come to light, and then they would have to either suffer it or take care of it. There was also the fact that he felt like he should answer for what he’d done to so many people...but mostly for what he had done to Sephiroth. Genesis wanted to clear the younger man’s name, but he couldn’t do that without a good reason to approach the courts again. Without Hojo, he couldn’t do that; he had no good _reason_ to do that, and he would push his luck by trying. He didn’t want to go to the press because it would disrupt Saoirse’s life, he didn’t want her caught up in the shitstorm that was the media unless it was absolutely necessary. Life was peaceful, it wasn’t perfect, but it was peaceful, and disrupting it by having some sort of tell-all was not only unnecessary, it was disrespectful.

He didn’t hear from Shikro.

Genesis didn’t go to any great lengths to seek him out so it didn’t bother him very much. He was fairly sure his adoptive father was avoiding him at all costs, and he was fine with that. The redhead wasn’t entirely certain he’d be able to keep his temper if he didn’t. He understood, in some ways, that Circinae had chosen her fate. And he didn’t believe in the _’written in the stars’_ shit, but his legally-appointed mother had chosen her lot. Maybe she’d been trapped when Genesis was a kid, but she’d had plenty of opportunity to leave once he’d joined Soldier. The fact that she had chosen to stay didn’t do much for his opinion of her character. He knew that it was fairly likely that she wasn’t causing a scene for his sake, so that the press didn’t walk all over his familial troubles while he was trying to rise through the ranks, but he honestly wouldn’t have given a damn. He supposed that this was another circumstance where purpose meant more than the culmination of intent, but he was terrible enough at understanding Sephiroth’s choice to die, he had-at the risk of understatement-enough to try and mentally compensate for.

Dating was impossible.

Genesis tried it, and the anxiety that came with it nearly threw him into hysterics. He couldn’t find anyone he felt connected to like he had to Sephiroth, he was always drawing comparisons or his partners were always bringing up his past. A few months after Saoirse turned six, he ended up in bed with Apple and then he ended up crying all over Apple and she was actually understanding and sympathetic and it was awful. Prior to his breakdown he’d demanded she use the cat-o-nine tails with no restrictions and she couldn’t hit hard enough, couldn’t make the pain great enough. It was only when she hesitantly said that it seemed like he was trying to repent and not orgasm that he fell apart. They were friends now, and they were both happier with being friends than bedpartners despite the fact that she was as lethal as a walking, talking, loaded machine gun. He had other flings...one night stands that were empty but sated him for the time being, but his love life was singularly bereft. He didn’t miss it...not really. Because you couldn’t miss something that no one could possibly replace.

“I...I have something for you.”

Drawn back into the moment, Genesis blinked and then forced himself to rise...forced himself to walk the few feet over a pink, fluffy-carpeted floor to where his daughter was standing with a square, laminated piece of paper clutched to her chest. She looked uncertain...a little bit apprehensive and a little sad. With his throat suddenly very tight, the mirth of the previous moment gone, the former Commander opened his mouth.

“...What is it?”

Still...she hesitated, and he couldn’t imagine what it was that would cause so much inner turmoil...what it could be that would make her look so small when she was only three years away from going to college. The fingers on the slip of paper clenched it tightly before seeming to force themselves to let go, Saoirse swallowed and took a deep breath.

“One of my friends...in school” she began haltingly. “Her Dad...her Dad...she said he was in one of...one of _his_ platoons.” Genesis froze, and she hurried on. “She gave this to me, and I didn’t know...I didn’t know if I should show it to you because I know it makes you sad...but I don’t know if it’s him. You don’t talk about him a lot, and I just want-I just _need_ to-”

“-Give it to me” Genesis said, his voice coming out harsher than he’d intended. When Saoirse looked miserable, he relented, closed the few feet between them to “It’s okay, I just...I don’t have anything of him, and I know you’ve probably wondered, but I never looked for anything to show you because most of it has...well, you know what the public thinks.”

She nodded but didn’t hand it over.

“I do know” she said quietly. “People talk about it, my classmates talk about it.” A deep breath. “Sometimes...they’re not very nice about it.”

The anger he felt that came with her statement was fiercely protective, but it was also directed at himself. Because she’d never mentioned anything of the sort, so he’d assumed that she was okay...that maybe her classmates were being kind to her.

“When did this start?” he asked tightly.

Green eyes flicked uncertainly to the side...to the bookbag in a pink cubby.

“This year” she said quietly.

It made sense.

He didn’t like it, but it made sense. Saoirse was in ninth grade now; her first year out of the private school he’d liked so well. And she’d asked to go to a public high school, despite the fact that he’d wanted her to go to the extended branch of the facility she’d left. They could, he decided, talk about it later...after all of this. If it was what he suspected it was...they would both need to process it together. There was the shuffle of plastic, and he took the square piece of paper with shaking hands...gazed at the blank whiteness of the back for a moment before turning it over. When he did, it felt a bit like descending from the top of a roller coaster. That first...steep drop into oblivion.

It was definitely him.

Specifically, it was him and a group of SOLDIERS who he didn’t know entirely by name, but he knew their faces. Some of them were dead. His focus, however, was on the man to the side...the tall, impassive figure that seemed to drown out everyone else in the frame. Dressed in his leathers...Masamune at his side...his hair swept over one shoulder like a shimmering waterfall. Sephiroth was gazing at the camera in that stony, distant way that indicated that he didn’t like the photo op but he knew it was necessary. His lower lip was just a bit stiff, his eyes were elsewhere. The men around him were smiling, but he was solemn...professional. This would have been before they were together, Genesis concluded. Possibly before they met, but it was hard to tell. He could only look...could only stare at the slope of a chiseled jaw...the broadness of his shoulders. The redhead knew what those cheeks would feel like under his palms...knew what the leather of his coat felt like...knew what his mouth tasted like. So assured, so tightly laced, so achingly beautiful...

“...Is it him?”

Genesis startled, felt his shoulders jerk before he could stop them. Blinking suddenly very moist eyes, he looked back at his daughter, who looked so curious and so hopeful that he forced the grief that had risen to try and consume him to the background. Clearing his throat, he nodded slowly.

“Yes” he said thickly, handing the picture back. “It is.”

Saoirse blinked down at it for a moment before tilting her head.

“He didn’t smile very much?”

Genesis laughed, and it was just on the edge of a sob.

“No” he chuckled waterously. “He didn’t. But damn-oh shit-I mean _shoot_ -darn if he didn’t have the most gorgeous smile I’ve ever seen.”

Green eyes surveyed the picture a while longer.

“Was he...kind?” she asked quietly.

Letting his hand drop, the former Soldier moved to stand just beside her; looked over her shoulder and into deep...viridian irises.’

“Maybe not in the way _you’d_ define as ‘kind’” he replied. “He wasn’t affectionate, or particularly convivial really. But he was fair...he wasn’t quick to judge and he was very patient, very determined.” He patted the head of red hair before him. “A bit like you really.”

“My…” Saoirse trailed off. “People say he was a monster” she muttered.

Sighing, prepared for the inevitable as he had been for a long time, Genesis plucked the photo out of her hands and gently placed it on the shelf of the cubby-cabinet next to him. Turning her by the shoulders, the scarlet-haired ex-Soldier waited until she looked up at him before taking her fingers in both of his own.

“Listen to me” he said quietly. “I haven’t told you...I haven’t told you about what happened to him. But it’s not because I don’t think you’re ready.” When his daughter looked confused, he smiled gently. “It’s because _I’m_ not ready.” He shook his head. “Your...Sephiroth…” Genesis’ choked on the title. “He was a _great man_ , with a lot of power, a lot of influence...but he was still a good person.”

“Is it my fault that he died?”

It took him a moment to realize what she was asking. When he did, Genesis sucked in a deep breath.

“No, _no_ , Saoirse. You didn’t-your _birth_ -” he corrected himself. “-Was not the reason he died. It was something else entirely, it’s not your fault.”

She appeared to contemplate this for a moment, her gaze somewhat over his shoulder.

“Do you think he’d like me?”

Again, the older man laughed, and again, it was a little breathless.

“Your father” he said at length. “ _Adored_ you.”

At this, she smiled; just a little bit, a single upward crook of the lips.

“I wish I could have met him, when I could remember it, I mean” Saoirse paused. “Did you love him a lot?”

Genesis hugged her because at that moment he didn’t really think he deserved her. Wrapping her up in the best Dad-hug he could muster, he kissed her cheek.

“Me too” he replied. “And yeah, I loved him...I still love him.”

Saoirse reciprocate the gesture hesitantly, with all the reticence of a typical teenager her age.

“I worry about you Dad, loving someone who’s so far away.”

Genesis scrunched his eyes shut and told himself he was _not_ going to cry. Because how the hell did he come back with something better than that?!

“I’m okay” he muttered. “I promise.”

“You’re not” was the grouchy response and he laughed and stepped back, sobering as he did so.

“I’m…” he gestured a bit helplessly before settling on something concrete. “I’m your Dad” he said dryly, and she gave him his own _’no shit’_ eyebrow. “But I’m also like...a person outside of that.” He put on a mock serious face. “You should know, really, that ‘Dad’ is not my real name.”

Saoirse rolled her eyes and he grinned.

“Way to ruin a heart-to-heart” she grumbled with a smile tugging at her lips as she made to turn away. Before she could completely do so, he grasped her arm gently.

“Saoirse” he said urgently. “I’m not dismissing that you worry about me, okay? It means a lot, but I want you to be a kid-a teen-whatever. Y’know, go out...have fun, live your life.”

Again, she smiled, but it was warmer this time.

“I know” she admitted. Her eyes flicked to the picture on top of the cubby cabinet. “Do you...do you mind if I frame it?” When Genesis shook his head, she nodded. “I’m gonna clean my room now.”

Moving towards the door, the former Commander acknowledged her comment with a wave of his hand.

“Good idea” he said airily. “If you procrastinate any longer I think I might have to use a shovel to dig you out of bed in the morning.” The redhead paused and turned back. “But Saoirse, no matter what anyone says...about me...about Seph, just know that I-that _we_ -” he struggled for a moment. “You are and were loved” Genesis finished. “A lot.”

With her eyes still on the photo of Sephiroth, his daughter nodded.

“Yeah…” she replied. “I know…”

“...Thanks Dad.”


	2. Chapter 2

The radio in his fist lit up momentarily.

Looking at the indicator light-accompanied with the customary, somewhat tinny and loud _***blip***_ that came with it-Angeal took a world weary breath before bringing the device just shy of his lips.

“Hewley here.”

As he waited for a response, the dark-haired former FIRST scanned the street before him. He’d be lying if he said that law enforcement work wasn’t just on the wrong side of boring. On an active day, he didn’t mind it; he was doing what he could to give back to the city and that was really all that mattered. On slow days...he sometimes caught himself wishing an army would invade Midgar, just for the heck of it. The minute he had such thoughts, he felt terribly guilty; because the city had seen enough war and bloodshed to last it several thousand years. Really, the _world_ had known enough corruption and bloodshed to last it several thousand years. Things were peaceful now...as peaceful as things could get in a large scale metropolis. He made very few arrests, and those that he did were usually fairly petty. Of course, to a retired SOLDIER, ‘petty’ consisted of heists and the occasional violent street gang. But it wasn’t like there were Wutaiin footmen breaking into Behemoth Bank or oppositional forces spraypainting vulgar language across HQ’s exterior.

That didn’t, of course, change the fact that sometimes he wished they were.

He’d talked to his therapist about it because it was disturbing. Angeal had never been what some might categorize as ‘bloodthirsty’ before. But the therapist in question was quick to correct him on this particular outlook. She informed him-quite gently-that wishing for something you were comfortable with in the past was not bloodthirsty, it was simply human. He in turn argued that wanting a war was _inhumane_ and she laughed and asked him if he’d like to get a coffee. Having no better argument, the dark-haired man agreed. He soon found himself in a cafe a few blocks down from her office with a dumbfounded expression. Because no one had ever managed to drag him out for drinks on the pretense of therapy, but that was exactly what she did. She did, and she managed to make three hours seem like three minutes.

Her name was Willow.

Specifically, her name was Willow Jenkins. When Angeal first laid eyes on her, his first thought was that he liked her quite a bit. That was a bit strange, because he’d never come to that conclusion about anyone else simply by looking at them. But she had warm grey eyes framed with long lashes and laugh lines. She had a heart-shaped face with high cheekbones, smiling lips and curly blonde hair that tumbled over her shoulders and down her back. More importantly, however, she was smiling at _him_...and for some reason he felt like he’d been waiting for a large part of his life to see her do that. There wasn’t any good sense in that train of thought, so he quashed it immediately and introduced himself to which she kindly informed him that she already knew his name-which of course she did he was on the roster-and then he had the privilege of blushing to the roots of his hair.

His own feelings aside, Willow was a good therapist.

She would be; you had to have extensive training in trauma counseling to get on SOLDIER’s ‘recommended’ list. More than that though, she was understanding, she was personable, and she wanted to help. At first, he was reluctant to open up to her. Not because he didn’t believe she had the credentials, but because his past had taught him that credentials weren’t always enough. They started at the beginning, and by beginning he meant _the very beginning_ ; from his earliest memories as a child onward. It was hard initially, because those memories were so sacred to him. Not merely because of Genesis, but because he had so few of them left.

Boyhood seemed like an illusory dream; like a spacious, illustrious, and limitless time when he had so many visions of his future and the ability to choose any of them. There were the dark moments, of course...the days when his redheaded friend would show up with bruises and haunted eyes. He talked about such moments haltingly...it took him an entire session to get through the memories of that alone because he'd never told anyone before; Gillian knew but Gillian never saw the full extent of the damage. It felt like a betrayal, a little bit, and he’d called Genesis afterwards...because no one deserved to have their pain elucidated to a stranger for someone else’s healing benefit. But Genesis was understanding, and he didn’t _understand_ that at all, really.

Painting a picture of his time in SOLDIER was difficult, because he had believed in it so much and then it had all turned out to be a lie. It was disappointing...a betrayal of faith, really. Angeal had wanted _so much_ for Shinra when they'd given him so little in return. Being used hurt...being deceived hurt more. He felt...in some ways, like he'd coerced his men when he found out...like he'd coerced _Zack_ ; filled his head with stupid, puffed-up concepts of honor when he himself was blinded to his own terrible ignorance. That was the hardest blow of all; the fact that he, as a leader and a figurehead, had put himself in a place where he was promoting something so evil. He felt terribly guilty about that...felt like everything he’d built himself up to be was a lie.

**_*”You’re off shift Hewley, what’re you still doing out there? Go home and get some rest.”*_ **

It took him two weeks to go over everything that had happened to him during his incarceration. Mostly because he kept having to take breaks...kept leaving in the middle of a session because he felt like if he stayed confined to Willow’s office for a minute longer he was going to implode. In the early years, he was haunted by reoccuring dreams of torture and violation. He woke up screaming into the dark in an apartment that was empty save for himself. Genesis had long before left HQ...he was alone with his demons and they were so virulent that there were times he considered killing himself just to be rid of his own brain. More than that...he felt responsible for what had happened to Sephiroth simply because he hadn’t _been_ there when it really mattered. Logic dictated otherwise, but PTSD was not logical...it didn’t have a direct course or aim. That guilt was overrun with _more_ guilt because surely he couldn’t feel as badly as Genesis did...he had no right to feel guilt. Those feelings lingered...even when he was doing significantly better they lingered.

The trial made it worse.

It was torture...to sit in that courthouse and listen to the opposition trample all over the General he knew...the childhood friend he knew. Because Sephiroth had never been manipulative...he could be harsh, cold, and unwelcoming but he was never manipulative. The last time Angeal had seen Genesis look so lost was when he was a child. Sitting in the defendant's box as wave after wave of victim testimony crashed down upon them...the redhead looked small and helpless. It made him so angry, because Genesis was not weak, but the courts painted him out to be some lovelorn...airheaded sap who couldn’t say no to someone far more powerful than him. When it was his turn to testify he’d been too angry to elucidate what he was saying clearly and that only served to drive the guilt into him harder. The lawyers insisted they all did their best...but he wasn’t sure. What he _was_ sure of was that the man he’d called ‘General’ would now go down in history as a murderous psychopath because all of them were perceived as ‘emotionally compromised.’ Those days were terrible...they were _horrible_. When Genesis tried to end his life directly afterwards he felt like he was living some kind of nightmare.

He joined law enforcement as a last resort.

Angeal _needed_ to see that justice could still be done correctly on some sort of scale. He needed order in all of the chaos, something to keep him grounded. They didn’t even put him through the training program; they hired him straight away and he was doing rounds by himself a week later. It wasn’t half as action-oriented as SOLDIER was, but it was still something. Some of his men followed him over...some of them sought different career paths and he didn’t begrudge them for it. He’d never wanted to lead, but he’d been put in a position where he was forced to lead...losing that wasn’t half as painful as he’d once thought it would be. He still had the occasional coworker that would shout _’sir!’_ at him at the top of his lungs, but it was a far cry from the chorus of booted feet and the sea of uniforms he’d once had to oversee. Despite the occasional drudgery of it, he went home at the end of the day feeling like he’d done something good.

“Cadet Hane’s wife is giving birth tonight” Angeal replied after a moment. “It’s their first, so I offered to cover his shift.”

Between work, therapy, friends, and family...there was some stability in his life. Genesis brought Saoirse over when he could, and he enjoyed those times immensely. Gillian visited twice a week to sit down and talk with him, and he saw Zack and Aerith on the weekends. When Zack announced somewhat anxiously that he was going to propose, it didn’t surprise him at all. He was happy for them, and he could only hope that their marriage was just as happy if not more. Genesis got a job in a military branch of law enforcement and they argued about it until they weren’t arguing anymore...Saoirse started going to middle school and life continued on….for most. He worried about Genesis because it was clear that his romantic life was going nowhere. When pressed, the redhead got snappy and irritable so he let it be, but it concerned him. At the same time...he understood. No one could replace Sephiroth...Sephiroth was inherently irreplaceable in many aspects, including his place as a father. It didn’t stop him from fretting, however...but there wasn’t much he could do.

Willow announced her intention to terminate their ‘professional relationship’ by asking him out on a date.

Angeal was gobsmacked because he’d never been asked out on a date. He supposed in retrospect that his reaction was a little ridiculous; because he’d left the office rather quickly and called Zack who laughed so hard he was clearly-even from the other end of a phone-in tears. Willow followed him out-unbeknownst to himself-and apparently listened in on his diatribe of _'what do I do?’_ s and _'of course I like her!’_ s and _'do you think she's thought this through?’_ s. When he turned around she was leaning against the wall a few inches from his face looking amused and warm and lovely. The former SOLDIER yelped and she laughed and kissed him and told him she was 'very sure’ and that he should ‘relax.’ Zack wolf-whistled from where he'd dropped his phone on the floor and Angeal hung up on him with his boot.

 _”I don't know what you see in me”_ he'd confessed when they were walking out of the library later. A good date apparently consisted-in Willow's opinion-of coffee and many books. _”I mean you know everything about me, this isn't going to be very interesting for you.”_

His therapist turned…. _impromptu girlfriend?_ looked at him over the styrofoam rim of her mug and pursed her lips.

 _”You're the kindest, most good-hearted man I've ever met”_ she replied, smiling. _”It's not about how ‘interesting’ you are, Angeal. You're a good person, and you have good intentions, for everyone you meet.”_ She paused and turned somewhat pink. _”And you're very handsome”_ she murmured shyly. _”You’d have to be walking blind to not notice that.”_

But Angeal did not notice that.

Not about himself anyway, and he told her so and she laughed and looked at him like he was something wonderful and he didn’t understand it at all. He didn’t understand it, but they’d had more dates and she didn’t get bored of him and she was funny and interesting and sweet and he kept waiting for it to crash down around his ears, but it didn’t. They took walks in the park holding hands and he kept telling himself that something was going to go wrong but it never did. Willow brought him breakfast and he cooked inner for her in her little flat and it was Heaven. He got a new therapist, a man this time, and he wasn’t the same as Willow but he didn’t have an intermittent crush on him either so he supposed it was quite different. Angeal confided in him that he thought Willow might be too good for him and he stared at him over the top of his clipboard and told him that nobody was good enough for anybody when they found the right person. This didn’t help him very much but it was oddly comforting all the same.

Gillian started asking questions.

Specifically, Angeal came over to her house one Sunday evening and she told him to bring _‘whoever was making him so happy to meet her’_ or she _‘might just die of old age and lack of grandchildren.’_ And Angeal-of course-said there was _‘nobody’_ and that he was _‘just really happy with his job’_ and she looked at him like she thought he was a bit of an idiot if _he_ thought he could get away with lying to her. That went on for a while until he brought Willow over for dinner and now-to his great chagrin-he couldn’t really separate his mother and his girlfriend. Gillian was head over heels for Willow; she _adored_ her, and he was grateful for it but sometimes he wished they’d spend less time giggling over his baby photos and talking about how much he loved his teddy bear. And he still loved his teddy bear, anyway. Angeal reflected upon this indignantly as he looked out at the darkened city street before him. Mr. Huggy was a gift from his father...the only one he really had left. Of course he was going to hang onto him. An image of Genesis laughing hysterically into a divan gave him pause but he was stubborn in his resolution. The radio sighed explosively before continuing.

_***”Fine. That was good of you Hewley, but you’re off for the day tomorrow, that’s an order. “*** _

“Yessir” Angeal replied, watching as a lone cat glared at him somewhat resentfully before continuing onwards.

The radio fell silent.

It wasn’t easy...none of it. There were times when he felt terribly guilty for his life being so good when so many had died for it to get that way. Angeal felt guilty because Genesis clearly wasn’t interested in dedicating himself to someone else in a romantic manner. There were times...several times really, when the redhead showed up at his front door to pick up Saoirse half drunk with that familiar _’I’ve just been fucked into the mattress for six hours ‘Geal’_ look and empty eyes that were screaming at him. It was hard, because the scarlet-haired former SOLDIER was clearly looking, but he wasn’t finding anything...or anyone. It worried Saoirse, she told him so often. His childhood friend’s daughter had called him to say her father was either terrible at dating or he really just didn’t want to fall in love again.

Angeal didn’t really know what to say to that.

He’d done his share of trying to help; dates with pretty sweet girls that Genesis absolutely couldn’t stand and a handful of men that had expressed an interest when asked. They were rejected; sometimes they were slept with, but they were always rejected. He stopped because the redhead was clearly irritated by it, and even more than that the people Angeal tried to connect him with usually ended up disappointed; or worse, broken-hearted. As much as he wanted to be that guy friend who set _his_ friend up with the perfect person...he couldn’t. Genesis was an adult, and if as an adult he couldn’t let go of the memory of his dead lover, there was only so much he could do. Putting the key in the cruiser’s ignition, the dark-haired man sighed and pulled out onto the main road. In the end, he supposed that forward motion mattered; the ability to persevere. That was what kept them moving forward, and he could only hope that it continued to help them move forward in the future….

In the end...continuity was the only thing they could hope to achieve with total certainty.

* * *

“‘Geal, c’mon you can’t play a hand like that and expect me to come back with something better.”

Raising an eyebrow, the aforementioned man stared over the fan of his deck of cards and into sapphire eyes. Genesis snorted and threw his hand down before picking up his discarded screwdriver. Taking a swig, the redhead waved a frustrated hand in the air, which usually signalled he was done for the night. They were currently sitting at Gillian’s dining room table with a plate of cookies and some slightly more bitter things to drink. It was around 22:00; the owner of the house had gone to bed long before then with a stern order for them not to stay up too late. His mother had had the house commissioned during the Refurbishment Project. It wasn’t large, but it was larger than the tiny cottage he grew up in and much more modern. He’d been surprised, at first, that she was willing to leave the place she’d live in for so many years, but he could see the logic in it. She was getting older, and this house didn’t require her to drive a hundred miles to get to a hospital. Moreover, she was closer to Angeal, something that his position in SOLDIER would never have allowed.

Gillian also now had no reason to remain under the wings of the Rhapsodos family.

The idea was as painful as it was relieving. His mother had endured so much just so he could live a life-a childhood life, at least-as free from fear and pain as possible. Angeal's mother had acquiesced to the tyranny of the Project, had realized its machinations too late...and then done everything she could to do right by her wrongs. Gillian had suffered so he could live. Maybe it wasn't much of a life; he had, after all, fallen straight into the claws of that which she had sought so desperately to remove him from the minute he was of age. He could remember, quite distinctly, when he'd told her he was joining SOLDIER. Angeal was fairly sure she'd meant to tell him then. He'd waited until the last minute to inform her of his choice; stood at the front door and announced it with his rucksack over his shoulder. And his poor...poor mother, she'd cried. At the time, he thought that Gillian was afraid he'd fall in battle; he'd told her-with all the bravado of a blind idiot-that he would make her proud...that he'd survive and send home all of his stipend. He didn't let her get a word in edgewise and Genesis was impatient. By the time he _had_ time to feel bad about it, he was on a chopper bound for Midgar...and it was too late.

The idea that if he'd just stopped for a moment...if he'd let her speak...it tortured him.

Now, of course, things were better...but 'better’ was a relative term. The amount of people that had had to die in order to get to 'better’ almost made it a negative effect. Angeal was grateful for peace, but he would not-could not-forget the sacrifice...the bloodshed meted out in order to garner that peace. Willow told him he was 'self-flagellating’, but forgetting was hard...forgiving himself was harder. If he were entirely honest, forgiving himself was harder than it was to overcome the trauma of his imprisonment. He _wanted_ to feel better about it, but he didn't know how to.

“So, when am I gonna meet your paramour?”

Dragging his thoughts back to the present, Angeal looked sourly over the table at his redheaded friend, who raised a scarlet brow and leaned back in his chair.

“Paramour?” the former Commander hedged, placing his deck on the table.

“Damn” Genesis cursed leaning forward again to gaze at his cards. “Would've had you in three moves. You've got a helluva bluff.” When the dark-haired man looked alarmed, he rolled his eyes. “I'm through for tonight” Angeal was assured. “But you're good.” A smiled curved over mischievous lips. “Doesn't change the fact you're a shit liar.” The owner of the Buster Sword grimaced and his childhood friend laughed. “C'mon, I could use some good news in the romance department.” Genesis’ playful expression spasmed for a moment before righting itself. “It's not like I have anything to report.”

He weighed the pros and the cons.

The pros were-of course-that Willow was wonderful and she would probably love Genesis by association with him. She already loved Zack and Aerith, and Angeal supposed it was a bit cruel of him not to have introduced his best friend to his girlfriend sooner. The cons were simple...but not simple. Angeal didn't want to tote his relationship in front of a man who was clearly struggling to find closure, and who might never find closure. Sephiroth was a dark shadow behind the redhead wherever he went. The younger man was in his eyes...in their quiet sadness, even when overshadowed by laughter. He was in Genesis’ smile; in the way it was never as wide as it used to be...in the manner that one corner of his lips never turned up quite as much as the other. The General was in the redhead's expressions...in his body language; in the way he seemed to stand alone...but not in the wild, playful way he had before. No, Genesis stood alone even when he was surrounded by people who cared about him ..he was fragile in a manner that tore at Angeal ...over and over and over.

It seemed wrong to have his heart be so whole when Genesis’ was so broken.

“I'm not going to jump over the table and strangle you, 'Geal.” When the aforementioned man opened his mouth, the redhead across from him raised a hand and shook his head. “I know what's going through that very dense head of yours.” The former Commander lifted his chin somewhat, his earring jingling as he did so. _”Poor brokenhearted Genesis”_ he said in a drab tone. _“I can't throw my budding romance in his face when he's such a sad bastard.”_

“It's not pity-” Angeal began swiftly only to be cut off.

“-Isn't it?” Genesis snorted when the dark-haired former FIRST dithered for a moment, his hand coming down on the table with perhaps a little too much force. “Just because you're being nice about it doesn't change what it is.” Angeal must have looked torn, because his expression softened. “I love Sephiroth” he said quietly, and his voice wavered only a little. “I'm starting to come to terms with the fact that that's never going to change. But Angeal, I love you too. As a friend, as a brother. I'm not gonna _hate_ you just because you found someone you really care about. That's not going to hurt me.” Crimson brows drew together. “What hurts me is the fact that, after all this time, you think I can't handle that.” He laughed, and it was bitter and wounded. “I think I've been through a heck of a lot, and if I can't handle my best friend having a girlfriend...man, I've got serious problems.”

He was right.

It was strange-Angeal mused miserably-the fact that he could mess things up so spectacularly by trying to be considerate was rather impressive.  
He hadn't meant to, of course. Intent didn't matter very much in the face of the fact that he'd known Genesis since...well...as far back as his memory went. Despite the fact that he was irascible, sometimes irrationally jealous and often cruel...he wasn't unreasonable. More than that...he was older, he was well traveled, he'd loved and lost. The Commander he'd known at twenty two would have been shouting at this point, but this wasn't twenty-two year old Genesis. Both of them were well into their forties, even if they didn't look it. They knew better...or at least they ought to. Smearing his hand of cards haphazardly on the table before him, Angeal closed his eyes.

“I'm sorry” he said hoarsely.

There was the rustle of fabric and he lifted heavy lids to watch as his redheaded friend shook his head, an absent-minded hand rubbing over the red knit-fabric of his sweater.

“Doesn't matter” was the muttered response. “You meant well, I guess.”

The silence that stretched on afterwards told him they both knew that he was letting Angeal off the hook with almost criminal ease.

“Willow” the dark-haired former Commander said at length. Genesis tilted his head in question. “Her name” the owner of the Buster Sword supplied. “It's Willow.”

“Pretty name” was the pensive reply. “How'd you meet her?”

Angeal cleared his throat.

“She was my therapist.”

Genesis got that look in his eyes that indicated he probably wanted to say something illicit, but appeared to reign himself in.

“Of course she was” he sighed. There was another stretch of wordless chronology. “You like her?”

Angeal let out a deep breath that was halfway to a laugh.

“Yeah” he said slowly. “I really do.”

His childhood friend smiled, and those sapphire eyes were knowing.

“Good” he said simply. His expression took on a mischievous air. “Now, the important question is, does she like you?”

“Well she asked me out” Angeal said dryly. “I sure hope so.”

“Direct” Genesis remarked, sounding impressed. “My kind of woman.” He raised his hands when the dark-haired former Commander gave him a hairy brow. “Not touching it” he said hastily. “You need someone direct anyway. Never'd get anywhere if you had the reigns.”

Angeal spent half a minute trying to decide if he should be offended before he laughed.

“Fair enough” he chuckled. He pushed the ace of spades around with his index finger. “I think...I think I'd like to get old with her...you know?”

For the first time, Genesis looked sad...but underneath that sadness was concern.

“I do know” the redhead said quietly. “But can you?” When Angeal looked at him in confusion, he touched his face...unchanged... unwrinkled despite decades. “Can _we_?”

He hadn't considered it.

As he did, Angeal felt a bit cold inside. It was all well and good to love someone, but an entirely different thing to love someone who you would watch age as you remained the same. He was fairly sure he'd be happy with Willow no matter what she looked like...but could she endure it? Could he do that to her? ...Ask that of her? Swallowing, he opened his mouth.

“Aging doesn't seem that great” he replied weakly.

Sapphire irises observed him in a way that said they knew more of what he was thinking than he was letting on. After a minute, Genesis looked elsewhere, his gaze weary.

“I don't think it would be that bad” he replied heavily. “To die” the redhead added, tugging at his earring. “Better than...stasis. Nothing's built to last forever. I don't think I want to live long enough to see everyone I love die.” His face contorted. “To see Saoirse-” he broke off, his voice choked. “Angeal” he said tightly. “She doesn't know, but it tortures me...the mere idea of it.” Something in his face must have betrayed his inner anguish because the scarlet haired former first reached across the table and grabbed both his hands. “I'm a fucking downer” he muttered. “But I just-” he inhaled deeply. “-I don't want you to suffer.”

Letting go of his emotions concerning their discussion was hard, but it wasn't like he hadn't been equally unfair. So when he squeezed Genesis’ hands back, it was with the knowledge that despite themselves and their flaws, they were still brothers...if not in blood, in bond.

“I know” Angeal said quietly. “Thank you.”

Genesis snorted.

“You don't have to thank me for screwing up your perspective on relationships.”

“You didn't screw it up.” When his companion looked skeptical he continued. “It was something I'd have to consider at some point, you just gave me the opportunity to think about it sooner.”

Genesis smiled weakly, and it was an apology as much as it was a reassurance.

“...What are friends for?”


	3. Chapter 3

If he could compare it to anything, it would be water.

Like plunging into a deep wellspring...sinking to the bottom and feeling the press of aqueous matter envelope you as the sun from the surface spiralled downwards. Weightless yet heavy, wrapped in the culmination of precipitation and flung into the abyss. If he could lift his fingers, he imagined they would resist his forward motion; would weave through something thick and soundless...slow...insoluble...slick. It was warm; if he could see he imagined he might envision light cutting downwards from the surface. His mind conjured images of particles caught...swirling in glittering solar rays. If he needed to breathe, it might fill his lungs with something cold and clear; heavy over his taste buds and down his throat. It wouldn't be painful, merely final. The end to a fight upstream...the last stanza of a symphony. His ears were filled with the initial dive; that crashing noise one experiences when throwing themselves into the crest of a wave. Bubbles ‘round the auditory senses; the roar of the surf...like pressing your ear to the mouth of a shell but too close…too close.

It was like that...much of the time.

Peaceful...it was peaceful. He had never known peace and the solidarity of it was staggering. Not in a bad way...just in a foreign way. He had nothing to compare it to, so he spent much of his time trying to accept it. Logic dictated that this...whatever it was... shouldn't feel this way. There wasn't anything _wrong_ with it...but he didn't know how he was able to make that judgement. Scientifically, the end was the end...there was nothing after... nothing collective. He had a consciousness, and that didn't make any sense at all. Of course, what he defined as a consciousness could simply be a state of symbiosis. Maybe he was a part of everything...maybe he was nothing. The idea wasn't as disturbing as it sounded. Some part of him whispered that it should be...that this… _idealism_ , or state, should terrify him.

_....But why?_

That was the most prevalent thought in his mind; _why?_ His memories were hazy...at first. Snatches of things that had come before...like watching shadows move behind glass thickly fogged with steam. He could remember leather and buckles...those were his first prominent recollections. Floating in his whitewashed mindscape, he remembered the buttery _***shhk***_ of leather over his skin, the sharp _***click***_ of his boot clasps. Muscle memory; repetitive actions he'd done hundreds, perhaps thousands of times. He obsessed over those few snippets of his life meticulously;, turned them over in his mind...relived the sensationalism of it over and over and over again. As his cognizance improved, he could recall more.

He remembered pain next.

The first time the memory of him being strapped to a gurney assaulted his frontal lobe, he screamed. He screamed...and he didn't. It was something inside... something compressed that burned through him and exploded into the stratosphere of his limited existence. Everything turned into white fire, into maniacal laughter and spectacles...the smell of copper...the sluice of scarlet and every inch of him was flayed wide. He stared into the round brightness of a surgical light and tasted blood and his psyche careened in fear and agony. This, too, made sense. Pain he knew well; pain had always been his companion, even when he wasn't plastered to duty. He had known pain longer even than he'd known occupation and obligation; longer than he'd known anything. The more his memory dredged up, the more he accepted it. It gave him a sense of identity, and somehow that made him sick...made him lonely.

...He remembered subservience next.

And it hadn't been subservience at the time...not really. He was doing what he could for the greater good. Standing in driving rain running through drills; hefting a great, sweeping metal blade and sneering into the face of death. Strong...he felt strong outside...but inside he was crumbling apart. Still...onwards...still rising up, up, _up_ and they put his name on the billboards and faceless fuzzy people cheered and he felt numb. Platoon after platoon... leading his men into death for the sake of a military regime so corrupt you could pile a thousand corpses under the foundations and the smell wouldn't displace the bureaucratic rot. Suits, ties, dead eyes, and _lies_. And oh they’d slathered him with sonnets about SOLDIER, but he'd always seen through it all. Seen through it and done nothing...bowed his head and stagnated because what else could he do? Hounded by the press, threatened by the Science Department, shackled to his name and his face and his _honor_.

...Pathetic.

Not all of it though...not all.

He remembered friends.

Few of them, but friends nonetheless. Dark hair and blue irises; a face quick to smile and quick to comfort. Hopeful for what he served, hopeful for those who served with him. Camaraderie...equals, so he thought, and rank had never mattered to him. He'd never looked at them as lesser, never saw them as anyone but the two who might possibly be able to understand his situation. Not to help, of course, but to weather it...to survive with what they had. And so of course the competition blew him back, came in the form of something loud and raucous with an attitude the size of a planet. Spars and missions, squabbling across the expanse of a hanger and destroying half of Intelligence over something as ridiculously stupid as a plate of spaghetti. And still...it was...fun. He remembered fun. He remembered a large sword on the back of broad shoulders as its owner sprinted down a hallway in hot pursuit of a thatch of red hair that was cackling wildly and holding a stack of rations. He could recall campfires...sitting in the shadows while his Commanders built a rapport with their men. Loud voices and fevered expressions...cheeks flushed with the wayward stain of battle and sapphire eyes... sapphire eyes looking at him, looking _into_ him and…

_”Sephiroth…”_

_Oh._

Sephiroth remembered love.

Specifically, he remembered one love and no others. None had come before, and none after. He remembered a tidal wave...an inexorable pull...a drop downwards from the slope of a mountain. His recollections fed him images of cerise lips pulled into smiles...so many smiles...so many flamboyant, loud gestures. Laughter...there was _so much laughter_ in these memories...it made the sun shine brighter, made the day lighter...made his heart feel like he didn’t always have to fight with his head to get a word in. The soft press of thighs the color of pearls...the humid, pink flush of aroused flesh...nimble fingers digging into his sides and and the curl of a tongue in the shell of his ear...a hitch of breath sending a thrill through his auditory senses. Sephiroth was given retrospect in regards to a mouth against the curve of his abdomen...of desperate snatches of solace in a timespace that seemed so impossibly perilous. Sephiroth remembered _Genesis_ …

...And his questions morphed from _’why’_....to _’where’?_

Because Sephiroth had a life somewhere...a life he had forgone...had cast aside in favor of protecting that which was precious to him. But he shouldn’t have to live _this_...this kind of dull-albeit pleasant-blankness combined with vague shadows in the recesses of his brain. He had _felt_ the metal of his lover’s blade slice through him...woken on the ground to the spill of his blood...to the hot bubble of death as it hissed against white drifts. And death had seemed honest at the time...seemed unavoidable. Because he was _tired_ of hurting people, and he could not exist knowing that he hadn’t done everything in his power to prevent himself from harming the innocent ever again. But the look...the look in those sapphire eyes when they cut him down was catastrophic. Sephiroth had known-in a brief, fleeting flash of clarity before he died-that this would _ruin_ Genesis. The agony in his partner’s expression went beyond mortality...beyond reason and beyond thought. He wouldn’t, in all fairness, be entirely surprised if the redhead wasn’t alive anymore either.

The mere idea of it hurt him more than he cared to admit.

He knew what that concept of love lost felt like; knew what it had driven him to do. Genesis wasn’t homicidal, but he was human. And Angeal had warned Sephiroth, very briefly, that the redhead had had so few loves. Sephiroth had taken away his partner’s choice in the matter, had sacrificed himself without consideration of what it would do to his other half. And Genesis put so much value in choice...in independence. It was selfish really...even if he didn’t want to consider the fact that it was. There was nothing he could do about it now. Nothing...because he was so far away from it all. He was blind to the happenings in the world...blind even to his own physical state...if he even had a physical body anymore. There were times when he didn’t entirely know who he was...what he was...what his purpose was in all of this. So when he opened his ‘eyes’ one day to find himself staring at the ceiling of a pink bedroom with fluffy pillows...he was very confused...but one thing was certain;

Sephiroth was not dead.

* * *

At first, he didn’t know what was going on.

He breathed...but he didn’t. He didn’t have any control over the limbs and arms of the body he was in. Realistically, there was no sense of physical presence at all...just an impression of _being_ inside a vessel. And that vessel was very tiny and very, very young. So young that the dresser next to the door looked like a monstrously large, hulking shape in the dark of the room. The space itself had clearly been fashioned with girlhood in mind; there were flowers everywhere. Big, small….plastered on the walls...strung from the ceiling. The door to the room was hidden by a bead curtain infused with the colors of the rainbow...there were tape-up, luminescent stars above his head in the shape of familiar constellations. A book cubby was in the corner...illuminated by the low glow of a tulip-shaped night-light. He didn’t recognize the titles...and he wouldn’t. He had never been given the opportunity of reading children’s books. The whimsical shapes on the coverings of bears, dinosaurs, fuzzy animals and colors were foreign to him.

Someone had spent a lot of time fashioning this room.

The amount of love put into it was clear to him even with his limited knowledge of how childhood should work. It was personalized with the occupant’s preferences; pink being the main and most dominant preference. There were little dresses hung up in the open part of the dresser; lace and frills and little shiny shoes that made his chest ache like it was on fire. He wanted to _cry_ but he couldn’t…and he wanted to because this was what he could have had if Shinra hadn’t pushed them so hard. Maybe this was his eternal punishment...to witness the life he might have lived if he’d heeded his lover’s counsel. It was fitting, he decided. That he would forever exist to wish for something he would now never know the certainty of. To live looking out of a little girl’s eyes...possessed with the inability to be sure that this was what she had lived or what he’d _wanted_ for her to live.

Someone was crying.

Specifically, someone was sobbing in a deep, heart wrenching manner that left him shivering. And it wasn’t just him...wasn’t just his incorporeal...vaguely-there self vibrating until his figurative ‘teeth’ rattled. The body...the consciousness he resided in was frightened and miserable and sad. The tiny form that was-for now-his residence, was clutching a fluffy pillow and staring at the bedroom door in a lonely and confused manner. And it- _she?_ -wanted to get up...wanted to see what was going on but at the same time she was resigned...like this had happened before, many times. The coverlets shifted as she did...as she rolled around restlessly until the sounds of grief grew-apparently-too loud for her to ignore. Stockinged feet slid over the edge of the bed and he watched them go with a kind of detached bewilderness. As much as the action was before him...he didn’t feel like he was part of the body whose experiences he was witnessing. If he went for the macabre, it felt like he was looking out behind the eyes...and that was it. He couldn’t feel the fabric of the nightgown that followed...couldn’t feel her limbs or the sensations coming from them...only her thoughts...her worries.

Sephiroth remembered Saoirse.

He remembered her...and he was fairly sure he was seeing _through_ her. The avenue of thought that brought him to such a conclusion was vague but no less concrete. As she padded her way to the door...little fingers brushing aside the beads...he was only surer. The strangeness of it all only intensified his sense of purgatorial existence...only drove him deeper into the well of despair that had been threatening him for so long. A small, pale hand pushed down on the curved doorknob….quietly, ever so quietly-so as not to make a sound-before the entry was revealed to both of them. The hallway outside was dimly lit; illuminated only by a nightlight, this one not so pink. The walls were whitewashed...of a strange antique kind of hardwood with weathered slats. Despite their aged appearance they were obviously styled to appear that way, the building wasn’t dilapidated or crumbling into ruin. Instead, it gave the space a bit of a retro feel...not entirely antiquated nor modern.

There were pictures on the wall...and it was their existence that cemented his resolve. Because they were photographs of a baby with a thatch of red hair, a toddler sitting in an executive room in HQ clutching a stuffed porpoise; in the rain wearing red rubber boots and a yellow waterproof coat and hat. She was a familiar face and an unfamiliar one...like looking at a stranger that he’d known his entire life and then some. Her eyes...her _eyes_...if he’d had a voice he’d have spoken to her already...called to her...done something… _said something_. Because he wanted... _he wanted_. It was an ache...an ache so strong it suffocated him because this was his child...the child he’d carried, the child he’d borne and held and then lost...lost to glittering snow and far away cries and emerald irises that were lighter than his own but no less his.

_”Daddy?”_

Her voice was far away.

It echoed...like it was coming from a great distance despite the fact that he was there, _right there_. And he understood...a little bit. His cells were still present in Saoirse, but not to a great degree. Wherever he was...wherever his _body_ was...this was transference. Not unlike a radio frequency; their cells would transmit memories and recollections back and forth if one of them didn’t know how to manipulate them to some degree. Due to his experience with Jenova...he was likely able to block her subconsciously. His daughter’s psyche was nowhere near as virulent or powerful as the Calamity’s. She was, of course, young; that could change, but for now he was able to keep her out. Feasibly, she might never learn about the darker side of her biology, and it would never be an issue. The fact that she couldn’t ‘see’ him unless he willed it didn’t make it any easier to bear...but he knew-in a single instant-that she would _never_ see him, because it was not permissible. He’d made his choice...he was gone...he couldn’t insert himself into her life as a ‘father’ who wasn’t really there at all. A parental figure drifting in the recesses of a young mind was no more beneficial than Jenova had been for him.

The hallway opened up into the living room.

Specifically, it opened up into an open-floor living space with wide...dark ceiling beams. The kitchen space was to the left...again mostly white with some dark or bright accents. It was simplistic, minimalistic but none of the appliances were outdated or appeared to be in poor repair. Chrome glittered under solid noir surfaces...black countertops and bar stools just behind a glass dining room table with four chairs. To the right was the communal area; a bleach-pale couch with green, yellow, blue and red pillows...a large flat screen TV sat on the wall just above a massive stone fireplace. There was a wooden toy bin in the corner carved of dark mahogany...the head of a stuffed teddy bear just poking out. Sephiroth’s ‘eyes’ focused on said stuffed animal for a moment...deliberated before gazing straight ahead; up a steep staircase and into the darkness of what appeared to be a loft above.

It was there the crying was coming from.

He wanted to tell her to stay below; that the steps were too steep for someone of her stature to climb...but she took them slow. Carefully, hand over hand, foot after foot. Twice, her nightgown caught on the edge of a stair and his heart nearly dropped into his stomach each time. But she was determined...strong and focused. Despite the fact that she was clearly nervous, she was also resolute in her purpose and he despaired at the similarities in their wills. Up, up, up and the further ‘they’ climbed the more apprehension seemed to tighten in his ‘gut’. He’d never been afraid of the dark; the idea of the unknown had never scared him because the reality of his days had always been wrought in so much agony...especially as a youth. It was irrational to fear nothing...it was rational to fear substance because substance had taught him that _he_ was nothing.

The loft was a bedroom.

Specifically, it was a single space...low ceiling-wise but no less airy than the rest of what he was now assuming was a flat. There were two vertical windows ahead, on either side of a large king bed whose style was rustic in appearance. To the left was the door to what he supposed must be a bathroom, and to the right was a large closet in an open style design. The clothes were dark...cotton ghosts in the dim light from a desk lamp but it was one article of clothing that caught his eye. Specifically, it was red...red as blood...perhaps redder. A uniform that he recognized...straps and buckles..gaudy and obnoxious and agonizingly familiar. They passed this...moved towards the bed and-

_'-No!’_

The exclamation was out of his metaphorical mouth before he could stop it. It made Saoirse pause...really, she froze; and he could feel her fear and confusion. Shocked that he could even communicate with her, Sephiroth retreated...burrowed himself deep and envisioned walls slamming shut before him until there wasn't a trace of him left. As she wavered in her indecision he felt sick. Rooted in a little girl's mind like a poisonous seed and he felt nauseous. But he didn't want to _see_...yet what right did he have to refuse her access to her other father? He couldn't do that... couldn't demand that...it was wrong. He was left to agonize over his new state of existence as his daughter wrangled apparently titanic levels of gumption and pressed forward...past the closet and a floor to ceiling mirror that gave him the reflection of…

_Her_.

And it was her..there was no denying her now. So small, too small to be climbing those steps. She couldn't have been older than three. Flame red hair up in a tiny, wispy bun and great, round green eyes that seemed to pierce his very soul. She was an element of each of them; if the essence of who they are could be tossed up and created into some twisted periodic table of identity. Hard lines...soft lines...metaphorical symbolisms of her fathers wrought in an individual who couldn’t possibly understand the significance of her existence at this given moment. And she shouldn’t know...would never know. She would never know him...he made peace with that...with his own silence...with his solitude. If this was his reality from here on out...he would survive it.

_”Daddy?”_

The bedsheets moved.

Specifically, they roiled; as if the individual beneath them was enmired in a sea of cotton...drowning in fabric and unable to find a foothold. Sephiroth heard Genesis curtail his crying...could practically feel his body tense up as he attempted to control his emotions. And he shouldn’t _have_ to do that. The younger man reflected on that despairingly. His redheaded...former lover shouldn’t be grieving...not this long afterwards. At the same time...he understood, because he would have been no better. And he didn’t believe in the terminology of ‘star-crossed lovers’...didn’t believe in the idealism of missing someone...of _loving_ someone so thoroughly and so wholeheartedly and deeply that their absence was soul-shattering. Logic dictated that love was a chemical reaction in the brain.

Logic..of course...had no foothold here.

Because as Genesis rose from the sheets...eyes red-rimmed and swollen and still so _blue_...logic failed him. Sephiroth was choked on the wretchedness that consumed him, the longing and the regret. He _loved_ ; even as he was positive he was dead...that this...this existence was a mere echo of himself. He loved so much it left his psyche vibrating with his partner’s distress and grief. And he wanted to take those beautiful fingers that reached out to hold their little girl...wanted to wrap them both in everything he had and apologize over and over again. He wanted to be the man he was unable to be when he was alive; the protector...the lover...the _father_. And he couldn’t-! He _couldn’t_ and the verity of it destroyed him. He wanted to reach out...wanted to touch...wanted to hold and reassure and smash every hurt he had caused Genesis beneath his feet where it deservedly belonged. He wanted to run his fingers through that thatch of red hair and say it was alright...it was all going to be alright…to say-

_”-It’s okay...it’s okay...I love you.”_

Shock was electrifying this time...to say the least.

Because now he was privy to the sight of his lover wrapped in the arms of a little girl who was doing exactly what _he_ wanted to. Like she’d heard him...like she’d felt his grief and his fear and despair and acted upon an irresistible compulsion. Genesis was tense...was vibrating with contained melancholy, but he reached for Saoirse anyway. Let out a great, sobbing breath and folded her into him...clung to her as she clung to him...like they had nothing left...like this was the only thing they could hold on to. And the dark of the room was suddenly cloistered and suffocating. Sephiroth wanted to get away because this was _damnation_. This was purgatory to a degree that he could not fathom. To forever see the impact that he would have on the lives of the two individuals in front of him...to exist and not exist…

Surely this was Hell.

_”I love you Daddy.”_

He was yanked backwards.

Specifically, Sephiroth was thrown into a white oblivion...into the soundless...warm oblivion he had known for so long. But now, it was no longer solace. Now it was merely something shivering and bleak...empty and bereft because he had _tasted_ freedom. He had tasted life. He had tasted the thick miasma of his sins...the cold horizon of his misdeeds. And no matter how much he wanted to tell himself that those deeds had been done in love the cost was too high, the grief was too great. If he had a voice, he would have howled his despair to the heavens because he could do _nothing_ about it. The Great General of Shinra’s army could do nothing for his lover and his daughter, could only know what they faced and it was agony. The universe had to be laughing at him; had to be chortling with a kind of divine derisiveness at the litany of his wrongs wrought before him.

Sephiroth couldn’t even die without knowing he had failed cataclysmically in life.

It came and went...such moments. He was privy to Saoirse’s fifth birthday; privy to seeing Genesis drink himself to ruins until Angeal had to physically drag him out of the room. Sephiroth was privileged with the ability of seeing his daughter ask her Aunt what was wrong with her father...he saw her ask Aerith what was wrong with _her_ that her only living parent should hate her so. He saw a litany of happy moments but the stale...darkened moments...the empty rooms...the feelings of inadequacy that shivered beneath the surface of his child’s cheerful demeanor were like hot brands pressed against the very fabric of his conscience. Because Sephiroth knew what that uncertainty felt like...he had felt what his daughter had felt...had wondered like she had wondered. And even when the years got better...when it was clear that Genesis was recovering...she wondered. It was a ghost in the back of her mind...not unlike him. A dark shadow of ‘could have beens’ and ‘what if’s.

The guilt of his foresight niggled at him.

Feasibly, he shouldn’t be privy to what he was privy to. And it wasn’t like he caught her in awkward moments...wasn’t like he ‘walked in’ on her mental space when he really truly shouldn’t be there. But there was a part of him that insisted that no matter the circumstance...it was like spying. He felt like an intruder in his daughter’s life; felt like an individual of questionable intent as he gazed out onto her existence in such a wishful, miserable manner. Sephiroth had not earned his place in Saoirse's life but he was still there. It was wrong...but it was also reassuring...to know she was alive, that Genesis was alive and managing. And when he saw them together...when he saw them spend time with each other...it was soothing. Not because it took away the massive consequence of his egress, but because he knew that they were managing, even if that managing was at times more than questionable.

He talked to her...usually by mistake.

Sometimes it was compulsive...especially in early years...when things were so difficult. When Saoirse was alone and thinking he couldn’t control the urge to reach out...to soothe. It was usually one-word phrases; _’it’s alright’_ or _’it’s not your fault’_ or-very rarely- _’you’re perfect as you are’_. He didn’t know if it helped...sometimes she seemed truly afraid of him...or afraid of herself. And there was never enough contact that he felt like he was a living...breathing part of her existence. If he saw her ride a bike for the first time, it wasn’t of any consequence. Saoirse would never know he had seen it, would never realize that both of her fathers had cheered for her that day. She would never know that he knew she had done well on the math test she was so worried about in fourth grade...that the score she’d taken home for Genesis to put up on the fridge had left him bursting with pride. His daughter would never know that he knew she was bullied; that every time she looked Genesis in the eyes and told him she was okay someone else knew that she wasn’t okay at all.  
Sephiroth was fleeting in his moments...only made his presence known when he could feel her breaking. Sometimes it was difficult not to give her more simply because he was there...because he could. Being found out wasn’t an option, however. Genesis would want to talk to him, and he couldn’t put the burden of having some faceless, bodiless individual talk out of someone’s mouth on his progeny. That was a weight too great for anyone to bear. And he felt like a liar...felt like the most terrible person that had ever walked the earth alive or dead. The existentialism of it tortured him because the lines between right and wrong were so blurred in his particular situation. But there were times when he was absolutely grateful he was there...times when people were cruel…

...Times when people were dangerous.

There was a snippet of chronological space when she was fourteen; when she took the long way home and a group of boys were following her. He recognized them; he’d been with her in school long enough to understand that they were classmates...classmates that didn’t like her. Saoirse was desperate for friends, desperate for recognition for something other than the sins of her fathers so when they called out to her...complimented her...her compulsion was-of course-to wait and talk with them. And she was so _hopeful_ as she turned...as she caught sight of them. Sephiroth felt her smile...felt her wishfulness...her welcome and her distinct need to have friends that were her age.

But then he saw their eyes.

It was a little bit like being doused in cold water...because he _knew_ those eyes. Knew their intent from such looks being directed at him. They were wanting...but not in the right way...not in a friendly, kind, or even romantic way. Those eyes were wanting in a manner that was cruel, bent on destruction and despair. They _burned_ with retribution for something that his daughter was not guilty of. Those eyes wanted to toss her against a brick wall and smash her soul to pieces. Those eyes wanted to rip purity from her heart and dash it to the sidewalk while she begged for mercy. _Murder_ bloomed in his heart but there was nothing he could do...nothing he could prevent, there were five and she was one...nothing he could communicate except-

_**’Run!’** _

She ran.

Sephiroth wasn’t entirely sure if she ran because of him or because of them but her fear was so tangible he could taste it. It was like oil over his psychical tongue, thick and sour. Down side streets, across causeways and alleys and the mantra in their minds was _’run run run’_. It was so cohesive with his own youth...so similar to it that he could do nothing but drive it forwards...drive it downwards into her because he would _not_ conscience this. She would _not_ weather this while he could help her get away. He knew he was too much present...that she could sense him...that she could _feel_ him but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was her safety, her solace...what little of it she had. And when she sprinted up the steps to the flat...slammed the apartment door behind her and slid down the wall with her head between her knees he ‘collapsed’ in the recesses of her mind...hemorrhaging psychic pain… _grieving_ for what he could not give.

_”Who are you?!”_

She asked… _she asked_ and he fled. Turned tail and ran while his daughter trembled like a leaf in an empty apartment. While she searched every corner of her mind for her father who she did not know was her father, Sephiroth ran like chiroptera out of some blackened cave. Because it was too much...too much. Like the coward he had always been, he retreated to the white space Beyond and he did not return. Somehow, he felt like he’d always known that that was an option...that his existence within her sphere was not so much something obligatory as it was compulsory. He hadn’t been able to control it...but now he could… _now he could_ and he was not coming back. He would compromise her too much...give her too much himself and the world had seen enough of him...enough of grief and enough of death.

Sephiroth was dead.

_...But he wasn’t...not really...he wasn’t._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is kind of a huge facet of the plot, though we won't be seeing too much of this vein of narration at all. I wasn't sure if I was going to bring Sephiroth into this until i absolutely needed to, but (maybe thankfully) I absolutely needed to in order for this to work. There may be grammar errors in this, my life like...took a grenade to the arse, and this chapter was hard as hell to formulate while all of this is going on. 
> 
> I'm aware heaven and hell are not canon but I'm not creative enough at this hour to think of alternative terms. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> R&R


	4. Chapter 4

“Hey, are you gonna ship out soon or they love you so much they’re just letting you grow into your desk?”

Frowning at the long, lengthy, and tedious dissertation before him, Genesis took a moment to fantasize about its imminent demise before looking up at Zack, who was leaning on his desk with a sardonic expression. In years gone by, this would have been a rare sight. During Shinra’s reign, Fair wouldn’t have ranked high enough to have a face to face conversation with him for more than a few minutes that wasn’t inundated with _’sir!’_ s, let alone languish casually upon his desk like he owned the place. The days of SOLDIER, of course, were long gone and times were different but there _were_ times when he wished he could just scream something loud enough to get the younger man out of his office. Privacy was a thing of the past; he didn’t even have a secretary. Not that he wanted or needed one, but it would have been nice to have some warning whenever someone was going to waltz into his thinking space and plaster themselves over all the hard surfaces. Zack was pleasant to be around, but he had no concept of personal boundaries. Not that _Genesis_ had ever been one to like personal boundaries, but sometimes he just wanted to get through his work alone and undisturbed. 

“Don’t you know?” Genesis muttered blithely. “Even _this_ version of Administration can’t take their eyes off my ass.” 

Fair snorted and pushed a paperweight off the side of the desk and into the bin below. It hit the metal surface with a crash that was both satisfying and irksome. 

“Uh huh, sure. You’re what...fifty?” 

The redhead paused and tilted his head to the side before fixing the younger man with his most dangerous smile.

“Do I _look_ fucking fifty to you honey?” When Zack opened his mouth to reply he lifted a hand to stop him. “ _Tch_ -before you answer that without using your brain, I suggest you contemplate deeply on the matter of whose sister you’re apparently marrying.” 

Angeal’s former protegee sobered up.

“I’d say you were around eighteen, sir” he replied in a solemn tone that really wasn’t solemn at all. 

Genesis blinked twice before groaning loudly.

“Get out” he grouched. “I mean it.” Throwing his hands in the air, the former SOLDIER obliged. “You’re no spring chicken either” the scarlet-haired ex-FIRST threw at his back. “The difference between you and me is that you _look_ it.”

“Keep telling yourself that old man!” was the hollered response.

Only when the door shut behind his childhood friend’s former trainee did the older man allow himself a small chuckle. There were, of course, some perks to the lack of a hierarchy; and he didn’t _dislike_ Zack...as he’d emphasized upon before. All of it was centric to healing...to recovery and re-discovery...both individual and societal. Nothing about Gaia’s current state of existence was going to be a symbiosis forever. At some point, things would change...and then they’d change again. Ideally, Genesis would have liked to have seen the continents split into respective states; each with their own publically selected representatives. Right now, the Planet didn’t have a leader...or even what remotely resembled a leader. To some degree...he understood it. The people didn’t want to be forced into a position of submission until they were absolutely sure about motive. A long time ago, he’d considered AVALANCHE, but now he was glad that he hadn’t. There was-ultimately-an extremism to both Shinra and the conservationist group….though to what extent he would never know thanks to HQ’s previous efforts in massacring them. 

For the most part, universal decisions came by way of popular vote. 

This was much more complicated, because public voting took a considerable amount of time to process; particularly since voting was based on topic and not on party or legislation. If a group of people wrote a proposal outlining their desire to raise the price of electricity in order to lower the economic strain on the hydropower plants, every single person in Midgar had to vote; and greater than the fifty percent had to vote in favor. Ballots sequestered to locale were normally divided by the city or province in which the bill or legislative proposal was centered. National proposals, such as changes in trade routes or fuel prices, required nationwide vote. Lazard had approached Genesis with the idea of being a member of the committee who tallied said ballots and he’d told him to go take a hike because fuck that. He didn’t dislike the idea, but he had enough work to do without worrying about the possible outcome of a bill based on his terrible arithmetic skills. Having a former Commander get into politics also seemed like a really shady move regardless of whether he wanted to do it or not.

His next deployment was sometime post midwinter. 

Grimacing, Genesis signed another outpost appraisal and threw it on the massive pile next to him. He didn’t like being away from Saoirse, but she was old enough that she didn’t mind being left alone, with a friend, or with a family member. Most of the men he was stationed with knew him either from being in his previous platoon, or from training with him many, many years ago. Zack’s comment regarding his age was lackadaisical, and it held no weight because none of the men in SOLDIER who’d received mako treatments seemed to age very quickly. Add to that his semi-alien, semi-Cetra biology and he’d be perfectly comfortable walking into rock concert wearing spandex. His discussion regarding age with Angeal wasn’t something born out of vice; it was born from the observation that no matter what partner either of them chose, they would always-as far as he knew-remain the same. Voicing his concerns out loud, especially to someone who was clearly smitten with his girlfriend, was more painful than he cared to admit. It was even more painful when he met Willow, because she was sweet, generous, caring, intelligent and _perfect_ for Angeal. He supposed that the former Commander ending up with someone cute and gentle was a bit of a stereotype, and in the past he’d have ridiculed him for it. Now, however, there had been too much pain...too much suffering in the world for him to be derisive of someone’s overall goodness just because it was somehow a societal norm. 

His phone went off. 

Rather, his calendar went off, alerting him of his necessary appointment with the head of the East division. The shrill sound in the mostly closed space made him momentarily jump; but he recovered swiftly and began gathering up the documents required for the meeting. Monthly departmental appraisals were a pain in the ass, but they were necessary in order to ensure that things were running smoothly and nothing was leaning too far into the heavy-handed. Everyone was-quite intimately-aware that what they were trying to do now could fall into corruption as swiftly as it had come out of it. Not out of deliberate intent, but because the act of preserving order always ran a fine line between tranquility and tyranny. Control...the philosophy of control was a subtle creature; one whose inner disfigurement was as deceptive as it was detestable. A younger version of him might have walked away from it entirely, but he’d learned that you couldn’t mitigate change by running away from it. Genesis had never believed in turning tail, in forgoing strength in favor of self preservation. Nor did he believe in isolation or solitude. The same would apply if Sephiroth was still alive. Both of them were men who believed in action, and neither of them would have been able to stand each other for long amounts of time with nothing to do. 

That didn’t-of course-mean he was philanthropist.

Exiting his office and swiping his key-card in order to lock it, Genesis shifted the stack of papers under his arm and pushed his hair back from his forehead. He supposed it was contradictory to his frame of mind to declare that he didn’t actually give two shits about whether the people were happy or not. There _were_ people, however, within the population that he cared about, so it worked in his favor to advocate for the greater good. Doing it on a singular scale, or even a selective scale, was still ethical prejudice...so he did the best with what he was given. That didn’t mean that he was doing this by himself, obviously. The amount of manpower behind deconstructing a military regime and building something entirely new in its place was boggling. The former Commander was-effectively-quite ecstatic to have avoided the majority of the politics surrounding the reform save for his own trial. 

It was impossible to change the entirety of HQ’s exterior appearance.

Architecturally, the process would have been a nightmare and a half. Traversing the sweeping, glass-laden byway that would lead him to Administration, Genesis wryly acknowledged that at least Shinra’s flag wasn’t flying over everything anymore. The reactors were also gone; much of their parts had been repurposed for the hydroelectric plant below plate. Trees were planted in place of them, but it’d taken several tries before the soil would even begin to support organic life. Much of the botanical work around Midgar was courtesy of Shinra’s ecologists, geneticists, and chemists. With no orders regarding the inhumane mutation of this or that person, it turned out that they made a rather mean gardening team. Finding DNA strands of different plant phylum that were hardy enough to withstand the radiation-desecrated soil near the reactors was also a challenge and it paid well. The SOLDIER barracks had been removed; they weren’t exactly far from the definition of an eyesore, and there weren’t enough men left to excuse the continuity of their existence in the first place. Most of HQ’s ground-level facilities had been demolished or refurbished for public need. It was a little strange to look out...to acknowledge the still-present, dizzying depth of it all while looking at the explosion of greenery just below...dotted here and there by ergonomic facilities made mostly of environmentally-friendly material. Midgar was similarly different; with patches of growth every few blocks that were as jarring as they were encouraging. 

“Excuse me.” 

Genesis nearly ran straight into a wall.

Mostly because the voice that spoke was so familiar he felt the need to knock some sense into himself before he looked at the owner. Svelt...velvety...not quite as baritone but similarly smooth and painfully deadpan. He did not-thankfully-do any such thing but he did drop the stack of papers he was carrying, which was a remarkable mishap in of itself. Clearing his throat, the redhead took a moment to collect himself before turning to face his extremely abrupt conversational companion. When he did, he rather wanted to sink into the floor because the _physical_ similarities were-if possible-even worse than the vocal similarities. The eyes were comforting; mostly because they were a very nice red that reminded him of his old uniform. When it came to facial features...he was _not_ comforted because they were angular...strong, and cat-like in a manner that was all-too painful and very much unwelcome. The black hair, at least, offset this...even if it was long and shiny and silky and just too fuck-all pretty for anyone to be having on their head appropriately. The aforementioned was pulled up from said angular features with a scarlet bandana. And who the hell wore bandanas anyway?

He was tall.

This wasn’t saying a lot, because Genesis was pretty damn tall, but they were of equal height and it was off putting to say the least. Slim, angular...almost younger in appearance, but his stance gave the impression of greater years. He was strangely dressed, for the current time anyway. Most people had forgone the whole buckle-and-strap fashion statement when Shinra collapsed, but apparently this particular person had not gotten the memo because his-assumably-kevlar outfit was riddled with silver buckles and straps and stupid high boots with glittering clasps. The former Commander didn’t miss the formidable gun strapped to his waist but that hardly mattered in the face of the asinine and extremely movement-hindering cloak clasped to his shoulders. It was the same color as the bandana and for a moment consisting of extreme emotionalism and hysteria, the redhead wanted to choke him with it simply for having it on. An onyx eyebrow slowly inched its way up a pale forehead as he was busy having a conniption, and this too was so familiar Genesis found himself wanting to do terrible, _violent_ things to a complete stranger. 

Thankfully, logic won out over insanity.

“Oh.”

_Oh_. Somewhat furiously, the blue-eyed ex-FIRST reflected that ‘oh’ was not a great way to make a first impression. Mostly because it was a retarded statement, but because now he felt like vomiting spectacularly all over himself and all over the person in front of him simply because they were existing within the same proximity. Swallowing, the redhead exhaled and closed his eyes...took a deep breath and let it out again in order to ground himself. When the momentary nausea passed, he lifted disbelieving lids only to be privy to the sight of the strangely familiar stranger trying to collect his paperwork.

“You really don’t have to do that” he muttered, kneeling and resigning himself to the task of organizing everything later.

“I apologize for the disturbance” was the flat reply. 

“Uh, _shit_ ” Genesis finished explosively. “Look, I’m sorry, you scared the hell out of me for personal reasons, but that’s really not your fault. What’re you looking for?” 

It took him a while to reply.

Specifically, it took him the whole five minute process of picking up the redhead’s paperwork.. Somewhat grouchily, Genesis acknowledged that he appeared to be thinking deeply over his reply. He’d have been somewhat happier if he’d opted to ignore him, because he really had no desire to start a conversation with him in the first place. Maybe the next person he ran into wouldn’t have a panic attack and then subsequently force him to pick up his monthly evaluation. Standing once more, the redhead nodded his thanks as long, adroit fingers handed over what remained of the respective documents. Once this was done, his companion cleared his throat. 

“I’m looking for Genesis Rhapsodos” was the calm continuation. “My name is Vincent Valentine.” 

Genesis dropped his paperwork again.

That wasn’t entirely accurate. He dropped _some_ of his paperwork, not all of it, but it was still ridiculous and annoying. As he bent to retrieve it, he wondered if it was something that came with age, but it was really hard to tell and there were more pressing matters to attend to. _’Pressing matters’_ mostly pertaining to the fact that Sephiroth’s maybe-Dad maybe-not-Dad was currently standing across from him declaring that he wanted to speak with him. His brain insisted that this wasn’t a bad thing, but his conscience was howling that this was _so bad_ , and that he needed Angeal, which was horrid and humiliating and he wasn’t going to tell anyone. There was also the fact that Vincent was currently looking at him like he was shy of a few brain cells. This time, he stayed on the floor a bit longer than was likely necessary; mostly because he was fighting the urge to curl into a ball and wish everything around him away. 

“He’s dead” Genesis finally spat out flatly. When he’d finally gathered enough gumption to raise his head, he was privy to Valentine looking confused. “S-Sephiroth” he gritted out. “He’s _dead_ , and has been, nearly ten years now.” 

The pain that flickered across that impassive visage in response solidified some of his suspicions. It was, however, an acknowledged pain; one dealt with...not unlike his own. It was something haunted, something deeply personal and deeply sorrowful. Somehow, it was different from his own, but no less intimate. Getting up again took a monumental effort...seemed to require concentration and focus with every iota of his person...but he managed it. 

“You’re fifteen years late, you square asshole” he snarled. “And you were pretty fucking tardy before that.” 

The silence between them wasn’t tense...not really. It was something agonized...something deeply personable but at the same time fraught with resentment. And he didn’t _want_ to feel akin to the man before him, but he did. If anyone would feel the loss of his partner even half as deeply as he did...it would be Vincent. The problem was that in the short time he had known Sephiroth, he’d made every effort to _get to know_ him. And sure, they’d started off on the wrong foot; maybe even the wrong foot of the wrong foot...but he’d never actually walked away from the younger man. For all his habitual nastiness, for all his wrongs, he was consistent….and then he’d _cared_. He couldn’t conscience being in the same room as someone who had possibly cared and then left anyway. This was, of course, taking the great leap of assuming that Vincent was Sephiroth’s father. But even the _possibility_ of being a father would-so he assumed-be enough to make someone have at least half of a sense of right and wrong. 

“If you could point me in the right direction…” Vincent’s reply was stiff, laced with a kind of acerbic bite that he was all-too familiar with. 

The snort that flew out of Genesis’ nostrils was as derisive as it was uncontrollable. 

“What? No one told you I was a foul-mouthed, angry, bitter redhead?” he sneered. When the dark-haired man looked confused, he forced himself to compartmentalize a bit; took a deep breath and let it out explosively. “I’m Genesis” he said flatly. “And look, I despise you, and I know we’ve never met, but it’s the principle of the thing. So tell me what you want so we can both get on with our lives.” 

Crimson eyes squinted at him.

“You don’t look like you’re in your forties.” 

“Yeah, and you don’t look like you’re pushing seventy so sue me” the former Commander muttered. “Looks like the anti-aging thing is pretty contagious.” Tucking the offending papers under his arm to prevent their continued apparent attraction with the floor, he worried his lip. “But I don’t think you’re here to talk about the fact that we’re a physical anomaly so maybe we could cut to the chase a little bit faster.” He paused. “I get that raising a kid is hard, I have one, but I don’t get abandoning your kid to do fuck all for who knows how many years.” 

Valentine looked distinctly uncomfortable and even more put on the spot. 

“There was no concrete proof that I was Sephiroth’s father” he replied, turning away for the first time and striding to the massive windows before them. The buckles on his boots made a soft, metallic sound as he did so. “And I failed...monumentally, at my task when it came to protecting Lucrecia.” 

Genesis swallowed, loudly. Because he was _not_ prepared for this conversation no matter what way he wanted to slice it. He needed a drink-possibly several-before he could even coherently process what was going on. Deciding that the specifics weren’t important, he plowed onward.

“So what’s your ace in the hole?”

Half-turning, the older man’s brows drew together...his forehead furrowing in confusion. 

“I’m sorry?”

The redhead gritted his teeth.

“What’s your _excuse?_ For the whole deadbeat Dad thing? And why the hell are you here now?”

For a moment, those crimson eyes were defensive. Something moved behind them...something vicious and untamed and deeply primal.Genesis had been out of combat for a long time. It didn’t change his efficiency, of course, but he also didn’t know what he was dealing with, and he didn’t want to have a confrontation here...in a building full of innocent people. Still...there was something in him that answered to it, something that was constantly bereft and seeking punishment for that bereftness. Whatever pain the individual across from him had to offer...he wanted it...he wanted it _a lot_ , and he didn’t care what was left of him once they were done. He was aware that this was an unhealthy train of thought, but it was also something repressed...something he’d kept inside of him for years only to have it simmer into something so richly suffused with self-loathing and hatred he could barely stand to look at himself half the time. Genesis was aware of the gift that was his daughter; but he was also aware of the fact that he was inexplicably ruined in ways that no one...not even a beautiful, brilliant little girl could fix. 

“Hojo wasn’t the only scientist in the labs” was the reply at length. “Before” he emphasized, when there was no response. “...But I think you know that. My father, Grimoire, worked with Lucrecia...until his death. Lucrecia came into my care when she was working for Hojo.” There was the rustle of fabric as the older man shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his gaze still fixed on the windows...and that which was beyond. “I discovered that there was an accident in the labs where my father and Lucrecia were working, it was the cause of his death. Previously, I hadn’t known the specifics, but she blame herself for it...distanced herself from me and married Hojo.” Here, at least, Valentine appeared to struggle with his words. “Despite...their union...we continued with our physical relationship. She was lonely, and I…” those pale lips broke into a grimace that was nearly a snarl. “I _loved_ her. Foolishly. I don’t think Lucrecia wanted to be loved, not particularly. Or at the very least...she thought love was a fallacy in the face of progression, of forward motion. Maybe she thought someday she’d-”

“-I don’t care about what that bitch felt, or what she was too cowardly to feel” Genesis snapped. “Get on with it.”

Crimson eyes disappeared underneath onyx lashes for a moment before Vincent continued.

“When it was discovered she was pregnant, I fought for her to leave...but Hojo...he intervened. And when I wouldn’t desist, he...dealt with me as he saw fit. I won’t bore you with the details of the experiments, most of it was fairly straightforward.” A black leather-clad hand rose up to clasp the gold-plated gauntlet of the opposite arm. “Somehow, he found a way to inject Chaos-infused mako into my body.” Another pause. “Chaos was...a WEAPON. Designed to rise up when the Planet needed him...when destruction was needed. As his vessel, I had no control over him, no ability to regulate his instinctual need for obliteration. My father discovered the protomateria, a method for controlling Chaos, before I was assigned to the manor. Lucrecia was the one who found a way to use it on me...in order to control the monster within.” He exhaled. “By the time I woke up...it was too late. Lucrecia was gone...presumed dead, her child born into a world of pain and resentment and cruelty. And I...I was a beast, barely in control of my faculties...barely able to conscience my own existence let alone consider the fact that I might be the sire of another. So I locked myself in a coffin...in the Manor, to preserve the world of the atrocities I might possibly commit if released.” 

Genesis snorted, he really couldn’t help it.

“Seems like self-sacrifice is hereditary” he remarked, unable to keep the bitterness from his tone. 

“I don’t-I don’t _know_ for sure if-”

“-You’re basically a goth Sephiroth” the redhead cut in exasperatedly. “Like if Seph defected and got into heavy metal and guns and hair dye you’d be Siamese twins. So you can stop trying to delude yourself there as well.” He didn’t miss the agony that came with his statement; the monumental sense of loss and grief that crossed the impassive visage before him was almost palatable. “And now he’s dead” the redhead continued numbly. “And you’ll never know, and it’s all your fault.” Vincent opened his mouth but Genesis wasn’t done, he plowed onward. “It’s my fault too, because I didn’t...I didn’t see him, not when it mattered anyway. But I stayed, even when it was rough, even when I was terrified we were both going to be hurt beyond repair. So I’m going to ask you again; _why are you here now?”_

The pause that followed his statement, was-if possible-even more fraught with resentment than the first one. He recognized, however, that it was mostly his resentment, and not the other way around. Anger was his most prevalent emotion; because a _coffin_. The heinousness of it almost made it comical. It wasn’t...however, not in the least. The reality that Sephiroth’s father had been wiling away his life in a coffin while his son suffered was an ugly truth that was red hot in his chest. Because _he_ had loved Sephiroth in his stead; had loved him with every besotted, hopeless bone in his body. _Genesis_ had loved Sephiroth, and that love had destroyed them as surely as it had made them whole. 

“I woke when they were demolishing the Manor” was the halting reply. “Last week. Chaos was...gone. I don’t know why...and I don’t care. The demolition order came in...I spoke with the project manager. It took me a few days to understand everything that culminated into this. When he mentioned you, I wanted to meet you, because I owe you a debt. You were there when I wasn’t. And I have nothing to offer you, no reassurances, no wealth and no hope...but you should not have had to suffer this.” The laugh that followed was dull and lifeless. “My son is dead and I never met him...never knew him. I don’t know how he lived...who he was, and I think I should at least _try_ to understand who he was in life before I accept his death.” 

“Loving Seph wasn’t a _sufferance_ ” Geness spat, his voice choked. “Loving him was a privilege, a gift...something wealth couldn’t touch..something...something so-” he stopped because if he kept going, he was going to fall apart here...in front of someone who couldn’t possibly understand the pain he was in. “-You wanna know how Sephiroth lived...he _suffered_...he suffered his entire life. And I did with him...for a little while...we suffered together, and then he died suffering...as he lived.” By the time he was done speaking, his verbiage had devolved into a snarl. _”Because you were a coward.”_

The next words he spoke were forced...thickly laced with pain, poisonously resentful...but he got them out regardless. 

“And y’know, I’d love to be the piece of shit that tells you to get out of my life, to fuck off and take your sorrows back to your pissy coffin and nail the lid back on. I’d love to tell you to jump off a cliff, but I’m not going to.” The redhead took a deep breath. “Because I have a daughter who deserves to have a grandfather in her life, and I’m not the person who gets to make that judgement. I love and respect her enough that I recognize that she should have the ability to make her own choices.” The former commander grimaced. “I’m not going to be like you, and deprive my child of her ability to choose because _I_ think I know better. So why don’t you come to dinner on Friday, at my friend’s mother’s house and meet her, you massive sack of shit.” 

Vincent looked, for the lack of a better word, dumbfounded.

Genesis was a little dumbfounded with himself, but he was too much of a wreck to really examine the details. He’d go to the meeting, he decided, because he needed some form of normalcy to hang onto even if he felt like he was shriveling inside. Moving forward was the only thing he’d ever known...since… _then_. But forward motion only pushed you so far, only kept you going for so long before you were forced to face the fact that despite your progress, you were still something crushed and splintered by your reality. And that reality was that Sephiroth was gone...and he was here talking to his father, inviting him to dinner to meet his granddaughter when she would never know the man he had brought into the world and then abandoned. 

“I would need an address.” 

This was said stiffly, almost formally, but the immense gratefulness in those crimson eyes made him want to choke the life right out of them. Because he _shouldn’t_ be grateful. This was the result of his neglect. This emptiness...this sense of terrible void that would never be filled. Genesis gave the address and hit the floor running; practically sprinted his way to Administration so he could lock himself in a bathroom and lean against the sink while his carefully constructed illusion of normalcy shattered into pieces. And he had to go home in a few hours; had to be able to put himself back together so he wouldn’t worry Saoirse, but he didn’t know how he was going to do it. It didn’t make it any better that Aerith chose that moment to call, that she called him and then called him again when he sent it straight to voicemail. It didn’t help that when he picked up she sounded desperate, worried, and yet at the same time hopeful. 

_”I need to talk to you”_ she said frantically over the line before he could even open his mouth. _”Genesis...there’s something in the Lifestream...something different.”_

Standing in an industrial bathroom with a headache the size of a planet...Genesis dropped his phone in the trash when she spoke again;

_”Genesis...it feels like **him** ”_

_**”It feels like Sephiroth.”** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So, this chapter didn't go at all like I had planned it to. For one, Vincent was never a facet in this story, not like this, and not so soon. I think this could make it a bit weird. But I also think I know what I want to do with him so...yay? I think his...what...his entrance is sort of abrupt, but I didn't want to integrate him slowly either-mostly because I didn't really have a plan for him at all-so Vincent has now entered the playing field of his own will and accord and now we have to deal with it. The part with Aerith was going to be a lot more detailed as well. This really isn't a preherald to Sephiroth's immediate return. We're still looking at several chapters before we even get into that, or even the process of that, because I think Genesis is going to be very reticent pursuing that. But, thank you for reading, and I'm sorry if this chapter was like...a massive angst bin.


	5. Chapter 5

Angeal didn’t know exactly what he was supposed to be doing.

For one, he wasn’t a dinner party host, and had never envisioned himself as one. And, really, this wasn’t a dinner _party_ ; Genesis had emphasized on the fact that all of it was strictly informal, sorely social. That didn’t change the fact that there was currently someone in his mother’s home wearing a suit, sitting at the dinner table looking squarely like he was there for a job interview. ‘Awkward’ didn’t cover the entirety of the situation. Really, it was making light of it, because the whole affair, ever since said individual had stepped through the door, was teeth grindingly gawky. If he wasn’t there for emotional support, he’d have already left. That, and the fact that he was somewhat certain Willow might never speak to him again, because she had emphasized that no matter what the circumstances, this was important. And it _was_ important, it was just very strange and very stiff, and he hadn’t felt this way since he was six years old sitting at the dining room table in Rhapsodos Manor. 

It didn’t help that Genesis was being squarely horrid.

_’Horrid’_ when it came to Angeal’s childhood friend was more along the lines of _’atrocious’_ but that was neither here nor there. And he understood it...a little bit. Vincent Valentine was the remainder of the shadowed vestiges of Shinra’s past. More than that, he was at least a little bit culpable for everything that had gone on during HQ’s reign of terror. This included Sephiroth, of course, which made everything quite a bit worse. When the redhead approached him with the concept of dinner with the deceased General's potential father, his first instinct was to say no. Because it was-in effect-a terrible idea. Not necessarily terrible in the sense that his childhood friend was being astonishingly generous and outrageously mature, but in the sense that that generosity and maturity could and would reach an end. 

It probably didn't help that Saorise had taken to Vincent. 

Clenching a napkin in his fingers, the former Commander exhaled as enthusiastically as he possibly could without making himself actually sound exasperated. ‘Taken’ was a relative term, of course. But compared to his childhood friend’s demeanor Vincent and Saorise might as well have devoted confidants. Smiling, asking polite questions, and listening didn’t exactly qualify as the aforementioned but the comparison was there. Every time his unofficial niece asked the dark-haired gunslinger a question, his former comrade glared at Vincent like he wanted to rip out his throat. This was followed by a wounded-quickly morphing into disappointed-expression leveled at his daughter. This was probably the stupidest facet of it all, because Genesis had _raised_ Saoirse to be forgiving. Realistically, if Saoirse was _not_ forgiving Angeal didn't think her relationship with her father would have survived the years of subtle neglect he had imposed upon her merely for being born. And it was more complicated than that...Angeal didn't blame the redhead, not really. But the stark truth of it was that while Saoirse could be as fiery as her father, she was as carefully considerate, immensely thoughtful, and incurably shrewd as her other father as well. Sephiroth very rarely acted on the impulse of his emotions; when he did, it was catastrophic. But if the girl sitting across from him had any of the General's tactical brilliance, she would observe and learn first, and act later. 

Vincent knew his place.

Angeal supposed that much was his saving grace. The crimson-eyed man was careful in terms of any topic of conversation; he didn't push too hard for anything, and he was quick to help with anything that involved the gathering whatsoever. Someone with less mental fortitude and less of an ability to discern verity would likely see it as pandering. The blue-eyed ex-SOLDIER was sincerely relieved that in this-at least-Genesis did not pass judgement. If Sephiroth came up-and he did, twice-Vincent was quick to fall silent. He didn't offer an opinion over that of those who had known him better. Instead, he listened raptly to what others had to say. Angeal had barely known his father, but he had deeply mourned his death. Gillian was never the same afterwards, there was always a little something missing from his mother's eyes..like her husband had taken a bit of her down to the ground with him. 

The absence in Genesis' gaze wasn't much different. 

It was a more violent grief, however... something that howled at you if you looked too long at it. In the presence of his partner's father, that void was a cacophonous, screaming abyss. Vincent was the picture of his progeny; his mannerisms, his careful speech, even the way he looked over his shoulder as if habitually checking his six. The first time the gunslinger smiled-at Saoirse, of course-Genesis shattered the glass he was holding and had to stumble up from the table to get a dish towel and a replacement. Because Vincent smiled with his mouth, but he smiled more with his eyes. They crinkled at the edges, exuded a kind of warmth while his lips moved very little. It was a mirror image of the General's smile; like glancing into a looking glass and watching a phantom move through it. Upon observing it, Angeal felt a shiver slither down his spine that was at once nostalgic and uneasy. Aerith followed her brother to the kitchen and came back pale. When the owner of the Buster Sword tried to catch her eye, she shook her head. Genesis came back composed but with the inner air of someone splintered apart. If you weren't looking, you'd miss it, but something fractured….

...What it was exactly, remained unclear. 

The whole of it culminated at three in the afternoon, with Vincent arriving thirty minutes beforehand which prompted Gillian to make him cook while she talked. It would have been funny if the circumstances weren't ferociously dismal. Willow was, if possible, the gentlest with the older man but she was also a therapist. There were times when Angeal wasn't entirely sure if she was talking to him or subconsciously working through a motivational interviewing session with him. He supposed this was the best facet of everything because if his girlfriend's friendliness failed her she could make up for it with professionalism. Vincent was bizarrely traumatized in a way that came off as something vaguely clerical with a hefty dose of fatalism and Angeal was not touching that with a ten foot pole. He had-at the risk of sounding callous and cruel-enough to deal with. It was a little bit unfair, really. They’d done their time processing, shouldered and then managed their grief, horror, and despair. Vincent was like a fine cut to the Achilles tendon; like a drop of blood in a well of clear, cool water. Things weren’t, and probably wouldn’t ever be, perfect...but they’d had balance. 

One glance at Genesis was enough to tell him that that balance was destroyed.

Shooting a surreptitious glance at Willow, who gave him a crooked half-smile, Angeal reflected that this was not his decision in the end. He couldn’t force his friend to go back on his word, and as much as this might hurt the redhead, there was nothing he could have done to prevent it. He supposed he ought to be grateful that Saorise was getting another family member out of this; because while Genesis was a fantastic father, he couldn’t cover every single scope on the spectrum. They were all family; they had all supported each other. He was open to supporting Vincent, but he didn’t want to do it at the expense of his best friend’s sanity. At the same time, he acknowledged that only his best friend had the ability to make that call, and right now he was giving the green light. 

It wasn’t easy to be benevolent. 

Angeal was forthcoming by nature. He enjoyed being open and honest, because dishonesty was not something he appreciated in others. Therefore, it was only logical that he exude the same kind of careful understanding. At the same time, there was a part of him that was deeply resentful of Vincent in a manner that was protective of Genesis...in a manner that understood Genesis’ viewpoint. The man seated at the table before him had chosen flight over fatherhood. Nothing could assuage that. For all that his redheaded former comrade had drank and fucked and moaned himself into oblivion, he hadn’t turned tail and scrambled for the hills when it came to raising his daughter. There was absolutely nothing Saorise could throw at him that Genesis couldn’t handle and there were times when Angeal was dazzled purely by his sense of perseverance. The redhead could come home from a bender and get up at four in the morning to make sure that his little girl had the best birthday possible even if he wouldn’t remember the half of it. He would take Saoirse to school when he could barely sit in the driver's seat as a result of whatever seedy hole he’d managed to lose himself in the night before. And maybe his priorities were a little screwed, but he was still present. So when Angeal looked at Vincent...he didn’t understand...but he did. 

Angeal didn’t know if he could be as strong as Genesis were their positions reversed.

‘Strong’ was a relative terminology, regardless. People dealt with their travesties in different, sometimes equally inwardly destructive but no less detrimental ways. Maybe going to ground was what Vincent needed in order to preserve what little was left of himself after serving Shinra for so long...maybe there hadn’t been anything of him left at the time. There was no telling what Hojo had done to him in the labs. Angeal couldn’t imagine that it was any worse than what Sephiroth had endured, but he knew what the mad scientist was capable of, and the Turks weren’t privy to as much-if any-mako like SOLDIERS were. There were times when Angeal considered the fact that mako had perhaps enhanced his-and Genesis’-ability to survive. He’d seen men die...traumatized by weeks out in the field, refusing to eat anything, starving themselves to death...for far less. And he didn’t like to give credit to that which had ruined the world in the first place, but he was forced to acknowledge that there was, at least, something there. 

Dinner ended.

Gradually...it ended gradually. Gillian began to clean up the plates and Zack jumped in to help. Saorise and Vincent remained at the table, caught in a discussion that seemed to be rather serious. Genesis floated off to the liquor cabinet with a vacant expression and Willow had to take a phone call from her urgent priority contact list. Feeling a little bit like he’d been forced to run a very tense marathon, Angeal gave a hand with the dishes for a while before feeling like he was hovering more than he was actually helping. In the end, he ended up on the deck by himself...looking out over the housing project to the now mako-bereft glow of midgar. Most of the residences in the area were generally the same; bungalow style and semi-detached...squatting low to the _very_ new grass. Someone came by twice a week to mow the lawn at first, but Angeal enjoyed the mundanity of it so he waived the fee and started doing it himself...sometimes for his mother, and sometimes for the other neighbors if they asked. It was-as far as suburbs went-a very safe area. Occasionally he got the opportunity to patrol it, and when he couldn’t, his fellow officers reported very little. There was the occasional domestic disturbance, sometimes a robbery, but none involving firearms and he supposed he ought to be grateful for that. 

“I need to talk to you.”

Aerith was wearing a simple shirt dress; blue up top and yellow at the bottom. It went well with the canary colored bow she was using to keep the wealth of her hair away from her face. Observing her, Angeal reflected that there were times he still forgot that she and Genesis were siblings. They were so different, but in some facets, they were very alike. Zack’s fiancee had a will that was practically immovable when she put her mind to it. She was innovative, didn’t stay in the lines, and she was undeniably clever. There were times when he wryly wondered how his former protegee had landed someone so compelling. But then Zack would laugh...would draw her in and put a gentle hand on her shoulder...like she was made of butterflies and stardust, and she would smile at him like he was the sun...and he understood. There was also no denying the fact that Zack was always there, no matter what. Some might credit Angeal with such steadfastness; but he hadn’t chosen his former pupil because he was easy to train. No, Angeal had chosen Zack because so much of his youthful self was reflected back at him when they spoke with one another. Angeal felt very much the ‘big brother’ figure to Zack, more so than he did a mentor. They shared the same values not out of practice, but out of a similarity of character. That wasn’t to say they were the same, but their sense of integrity, the desire to do the right thing...that was what had made him so determined to be a good instructor to his charge.

“There’s nothing I could have said to stop him” Angeal said at length, shifting somewhat and leaning on the railing before him. For a moment, Aerith’s expression morphed into that of confusion, and then turned-surprisingly-to guilt. Focusing on her fully, the older man turned to face her and raised an eyebrow. “There’s nothing _you_ could have said either” he added a bit uncertainly. 

“I know” she said quietly, tucking a stray flyaway hair behind her ear and sinking down into an armchair across from him. “And I don’t like it, but that’s not what I’m here to talk to you about.” When the former Commander gestured for her to go on, she shook her head and closed her eyes. “It’s going to sound _crazy._ ” 

Allowing himself a wry chuckle, Angeal averted his gaze and watched as a motorcycle broke free of the cloistered space of the housing project and made its way to the city; dust kicking up in its wake as the roar of the motor descended into a buzz, and then to a distant hum. 

“I think there’s very little at this point that you could tell me that would sound remotely crazy” he replied kindly. 

Something rustled in the begonias to the fore of the porch as he awaited Aerith’s answer. Further investigation revealed the source of the noise to be a rather overlarge rabbit. It was strange to see wildlife...even now. Such occurrences were sparse; it wasn’t like the landscape had had an exorbitant amount of time to recover. Some of the animal activity around Midgar was courtesy of other places on Gaia; those less ravaged by the blight of Shinra’s regime. There were times when he-quite bitterly-wondered how he had missed the death of the Planet’s ecosystem. Now that it was all behind them, it was very obvious, but the fact that he’d been so blind to something so vital ate at him more than he’d like to admit. 

“...I...I can sense Sephiroth...in the Lifestream.” 

He wanted to say it wasn’t unusual.

Exhaling, rotating himself once more-slowly, this time-to face the woman before him, Angeal reflected that he wanted to say that of course she would feel Sephiroth in the Lifestream…Sephiroth was, after all, _dead_. But Aerith’s expression said that this was not usual, that this was not a commonplace anomaly that she could discern merely because of her powers. Genesis had shunned any possible connection to his Cetra heritage for this very reason; he didn’t want to run into the dregs of his dead lover while he was in contact with the Planet. In his words _’I have enough fucking ghosts in my head without contending with a plausible hoard of the dead’._ Letting his fingers lift to grasp the cuff of his dinner jacket; the former Commander closed his eyes and shook his head, which was a direct contradiction with the word that left his mouth.  
“Explain.” 

Aerith’s hesitation was palatable, and he did get it...he really did. They were both aware of the fact that this could dredge up old hurts, _more_ hurts...for the sake of absolutely nothing. But Aerith was also aware of the fact that _he_ was the individual that had never found the General’s body...that it was he who had dredged through crimson-drenched snow to find absolutely nothing in the wake of the annihilation of what was-so he thought-one of the greatest loves to ever walk the Planet. It was he who had sunk to his knees in the sea of gore before him to despair in uncertain certainty of the truth he would need to bring back to Midgar. If anyone would listen to her...he would. 

He just didn’t know if he wanted to.

“Before…” Aerith faltered and cleared her throat. “Initially, I felt Sephiroth...when he was alive. Everyone has a little of the Planet in them. I never really took the chance to get to know him...so I was never really familiar with what he felt like...but I knew him well enough by the time he died.” Confused, Angeal opened his eyes and leveled her with a strange look and she flushed. “Genesis...we’re both part Cetra, I can’t sense him, so I could never tell if they were alive back then if I looked for him...I only knew to look for Sephiroth...so that’s what I did...all the time. When he-when Sephiroth-” This time she visibly struggled with herself, and he let her have her moment of grief. “-When he _passed_ , he disappeared.” Aerith took a deep breath. “That doesn’t happen” she said firmly. “It just doesn’t. When people go into the Lifestream, they lose their bodies but they don’t lose that part of the Planet they take with them...the part that is singularly theirs. And I didn’t say anything because I thought maybe the Jenova cells consumed him...tore him apart.” She shuddered, and Angeal suddenly wanted to hug her. “I thought,” she said in a choked voice. “That Sephiroth was gone forever, and I didn’t know how to tell Genesis that he wouldn’t see him after-!” 

“-You couldn’t have” Angeal said hastily, moving forward to kneel and place a hand on her shoulder. When Aerith looked stubbornly miserable, he squeezed gently. “How would you know how to say that?” he said quietly. “When would there have been a right time?” The guilt that rose to swallow him was immeasurable. “You _carried_ that?” he asked hoarsely. _”All this time?”_. Her lip trembled before she appeared to make a monumental effort to reign herself in. “You shouldn’t have” he said desperately, his tone at once incredulous and a very poor attempt to breathlessly soothe. “Zack” he said desperately. “Zack would have-”

“-I love Zack” Aerith said, and when she smiled it was watery. “I love him so much, but Zack has a very big mouth.” She patted Angeal’s knee. “And I know you’re a good listener, Angeal. You’re a good friend, a good man...but you and I both know you would have told Genesis.” 

He wanted to deny it. 

He couldn’t.

Angeal would have told Genesis because the redhead would never have forgiven him if he didn’t. And he’d have wheedled it out of him, like he always did. He was terrible at keeping secrets from the redhead because of the way they’d grown up. They’d shared everything. No matter how much the truth might have hurt the older man, he’d have told him out of respect, out of love, and because he didn’t want to betray his trust. None of them, _none of them_ , could have shouldered the burden of such a truth without turning to the one person that truth would obliterate. It made him faintly sick to acknowledge that his loyalty to his friend went beyond that friend’s livelihood. Sitting back, Angeal tried to process what was being said to him.

“You can feel him now” he said slowly. “What does that mean?” 

Aerith took another moment to collect herself.

“You should know” she said in a voice that was distinctly nasally. “That Sephiroth...he doesn’t feel dead.” When the older man looked skeptical she waved a hand. “You can tell the difference, when you’re accustomed to it. People who are dead...they don’t feel much...they don’t think very much. Sephiroth is...he’s always thinking...he’s always reaching around something...always very _present_. People with that kind of activity in the Lifestream...well, frankly, usually they still have bodies.” She looked squarely at Angeal. “Sephiroth feels to me like you feel to me, here, now, standing before me. He feels like he’s alive...he’s just somewhere else.” Her gaze became distant. “I’ve felt him...before. And I really didn’t recognize him, because he was in and out...fleeting. He was _going_ someplace all the time, and I couldn’t follow him wherever he went...so I just thought it was...an echo. I thought maybe his death had caused some type of...wave.” She blinked. “Like how an earthquake has aftershocks. But then he settled...in the Lifestream I mean. He stayed...I don’t know why, and then I recognized him.” 

Pushing away his monumental disbelief, Angeal pressed further.

“But how would you know to look?” he asked quietly. “What drove you to…” he trailed off as the truth came to him as he spoke. Aerith was looking at him like she knew exactly where his ruminations had taken him. 

“Genesis is my brother” she said in a voice that was barely a whisper. “I _love_ him. Watching him go through this was like dying...and I know that I don’t always show it. I didn’t want to worry Zack, didn’t want to worry anyone really. Talking to the Planet...it’s how I’ve always processed things...understood how things work. And Sephiroth-” she broke off again and shook her head. “-Sephiroth had a way of connecting with people, even if he didn’t particularly like it. He could walk into a room and every head would turn and look at him. Genesis has the same effect, but it’s full of fire...Sephiroth...Sephiroth feels like a thunderhead rolling in on a spring afternoon. He’s so big, it’s hard to miss him.” 

Anxiety forced him to move.

Getting up, Angeal began to pace the porch; his mind working all the while. The idea of it was unconscionable. More than that, it was _dangerous_. Even as his will tried to bend itself towards the concept of hope, he wrenched it away. Not for himself, but for Genesis. Approaching the redhead with the idea was ludicrous...but hiding it from him was worse. It was-if possible-the worst situation he had ever found himself in on the worst of days in the worst of situations. There was a part of him that acknowledged that he would have to tell Genesis or both of them would forever carry this uncertainty, this sense of unknowing. They would need the redhead’s permission to do this, no matter how much he wanted to deny it. Neither of them could just disappear for no reason whatsoever to pursue something that was possibly fruitless, and they were both terrible at lying. 

“...Have you told him?”

“I’ve tried.” Aerith’s voice was hushed. “I’ve tried, but he doesn’t want to hear it, and I don’t really blame him.” 

“I don’t either” Angeal said weakly. 

They sat there for a while longer, until someone put on the radio and both were shaken out of a sort of disbelieving numbness. Aerith stood and mumbled something that he was too distressed to catch before making her way back into the house, and he was-once again-left alone with his thoughts. The view of Midgar seemed somehow bleak now...seemed laden with a sense of desperate urgency that he couldn’t act upon. And Angeal was a slave to hopefulness, because it was all he had carried with him when Shinra had fallen. He had hoped for something better for the people who had lived there, hoped for something better for the people he cared about, hoped that he could recover enough to appreciate life once again. In this, at least, hope was cruel, because now he could not shake the sense that if he didn’t do something he would regret it. 

Going back in took a considerable amount of bravery.

Mostly because he was afraid of what he was going to walk into, but he did it anyway. Gillian was leaning against the kitchen counter talking to Willow while they looked over a magazine whose contents went entirely over his head. Both women shot him a smile, which he returned with a kind of uncertainty, before he continued his perusal of the room. Vincent and Saorise were still sitting at the dining room table, but Saorise’s eyes were red...and the gunslinger was pale...the grief in his eyes palatable. There was distance between them now, but it was an understanding sort of distance; like they were both processing what the other had said...trying to come to terms with it. Zack was in the living room with Aerith, both talking in hushed but complacent tones. Angeal guessed that she must have told him, because the younger man looked like he’d rather like to gut himself open and was only refraining from doing so by hugging his girlfriend. 

Genesis was on the porch. 

Specifically, he was on the opposite porch with a bottle of vodka and a vacant expression that was too telling for his liking. The view here didn’t look at anything but more housing; the street leading in, the dwellings to the fore and to the side. Sitting himself in the rocking chair next to his best friend, Angeal reflected that he had no idea how to approach the conversation at all. And it was rare for him to be at a loss for words...for reassurance. Because while he wanted to comfort the man next to him, he was well aware that talk, in this situation, was cheap. 

“Well” the redhead drawled, setting the almost-empty bottle down. “Tell me what a shit idea this all was.” When Angeal merely looked at him and said nothing, the scarlet-haired ex-SOLDIER snorted. “C’mon, don’t pussyfoot around it ‘Geal. We both know that this was the dumbest stunt I’ve managed to pull.” 

“I don’t think so” Angeal said slowly. “I think…” he hesitated. “Well, I think that I’m having a hard time understanding why you did it, other than for Saorise. Because I can tell that this is hurting you...and as your friend, I hate to see that.” 

_”I hate to see that”_ Genesis mimicked, throwing caution to the wind and snatching the vodka up to take another swig. By the time he put it down again, he looked dangerously close to falling over. “Circinae” he slurred. “If we want to bring the bitch up” he held up a hand when Angeal opened his mouth to protest. “Just shut up. My dear departed mother once told me that _‘holding a grudge is like drinking poison and hoping the other person gets sick.’_ ” A decidedly disjointed shrug. “So I thought, _’hell, I don’t want to forgive this motherfucker, but I don’t want it to eat me alive either.’_ ” Blue eyes fixed him with a stare that was strangely steady. “So, that’s why I did it. Nothing fucking noble about it, I just didn’t want it hanging over my head.” 

“I wouldn’t call that ignoble-” the dark-haired man began but he was cut off when his conversational companion kicked the ottoman before them so hard into the bannister that it cracked.

“-I don’t give a _shit_ what you call it Angeal!” he shouted, his voice cracking. Inside, the murmur of voices fell momentarily silent before slowly starting up again. Lowering his voice to a hiss, Genesis continued. “You know, you’re my friend, or you’re supposed to be anyway. I’m always on this pedestal to you, so high that we never see eye to eye. But when I fuck up, _I fuck up_ , and you’re so _disappointed_. You’re disappointed but you hide it by trying to insist that I’m _good_ and _noble_ and that I have _every right_ to be an asshat when really you had no fucking right to put me up there in the first place. Fuck you for that, I didn’t ask for that. I’m a selfish man, with selfish needs, and just because I can turn it into something pretty for Saorise doesn’t mean that it’s pretty for me.” 

“I think we should talk when you’re feeling more logical” Angeal said firmly, beginning to get up. “And sober” he added. 

“Yeah, that’s right, run away like you always do. When things get tough you-”

“-I what?” Angeal said, finally losing his patience. “Cut you down from the ceiling?! Save your life?!” 

“Again” Genesis said fiercely. “I didn’t ask for that. I _wanted_ to die that night, I was _ready_ , but you had to trot along and shove your friendship in my face and force me to _live_ just to go through this over and over again. When I’m at my worst, you’re there. But when it comes to the talking, to the working through it, you’re not. What do I have to do to get you to understand that I’m a trainwreck? Do I have to _lay down_ in the fucking tracks every time?!” 

“You’re not being fair about it” Angeal snapped. “You know that’s not true, you know I’d do anything for you. That there are people in this house that would lay down their lives for you in the blink of an eye. Genesis, _your sister_ has been seeing Sephiroth in the Lifestream-” 

Mentioning Sephiroth was a mistake. 

It was a mistake because Genesis flew out of his chair so fast the remainder of the vodka smashed to pieces at his feet. The redhead stumbled, kept going ‘till he nearly fell over the bannister only to right himself and grab at Angeal’s lapels. 

_”Don’t you dare”_ he hissed. “Don’t you _dare_ try and rope me into that crazy bullshit. Don’t you make me _wish_ again” his voice broke on the word ‘wish’. Whatever fire had been fueling the older man’s rage seemed to burn out because Genesis didn’t do anything but shake him a little bit before letting go so he could stagger back to his chair. “Don’t mention Sephiroth to me ever again” he said dully. “Don’t. I can’t stand it.” When Angeal remained...hovering between a kind of quivering, grief-ridden indecision and total destruction, a booted foot kicked at the broken glass. “Get the fuck out of here” the redhead said hoarsly. “Go inside, with all those other happy people. We’re done. _I’m done_.” 

“I’m not giving up on you” Angeal said flatly. 

Genesis’ answering laugh was ugly and dull. 

“Too bad” he sneered. “Can’t give up on something that doesn’t exist.” 

Angeal left.

He left...but he refused to give up. And it didn’t matter what was said to him...in the end. They had too much behind them, too much history for him to dismiss their friendship because Genesis was hurting. He would _not_ give up on Genesis, because he would, in effect, be giving up on himself. Gillian gave him a worried look when he entered the living room; her eyes concerned, resigned, desperate. Aerith and Zack were gone; presumably having left when the argument began. Genesis’ sister was painfully in tune with her brother’s emotions. When he was upset, the transference between them became nearly unbearable for her. Willow was waiting by the door, and she put a hand to his cheek, forced him to look at her when he was within her reach. There was the scrape of a chair, the murmur of conversation between Vincent and Gillian, but he ignored it. Instead, he watched as his friend’s daughter got up and moved toward him...so resemblant of both men...one that had been...and one who barely was. When they were level with each other, Saoirse opened her mouth. 

“Is Dad okay?” 

Taking a deep breath, trying to shove his grief down, Angeal shook his head. 

“No” he said gruffly. “No...he needs...he needs time. But he also needs something else… _someone_ else.” 

Green eyes filled with tears. 

“But he’s not coming back” she said desperately. “I can’t make him happy, I’m not enough-!” 

“-That’s just the thing” Angeal interrupted, wincing apologetically. “I think you can help. And all you need to do is give me permission to do something.” 

“Anything” was the whispered response. “I’d do anything.” 

Meeting her gaze squarely, Angeal put a hand on her shoulder. 

“I need your permission” he murmured.

“...I need you to let me look for a way to bring Sephiroth back.”


	6. Chapter 6

_”We are not the sum of our faults, but the sum of how hard we strive, in moments of wrong, to correct what those faults have borne us, and our loved ones.”_

Sitting on Gillian’s porch step, watching as the woman in question and Angeal talked inside, Saoirse didn’t know if that was true. Glancing down at the line in the book once more-an old one...a gift, if she could remember right, from Tseng-the redhead closed the book, and then did the same with her eyes. It was getting warmer; spring was coming. When she was little, she used to get excited about the coming summer. Mostly because it meant she didn’t have to go to school, didn’t have to endure the looks from her classmates that blatantly stated that she was the reminder of something, some _one_ , dead and buried. It meant that she didn’t have to lock herself in the cloistered bathroom stalls in the library and cry because someone had scribbled something hateful on her locker again. It meant that she didn’t have to go to such lengths to hide her resemblance to her dead father by putting her hair up, wearing skirts, or trying to apply makeup. She’d once bought contacts...brown ones; the cheap kind...just so she wouldn’t have to have his eyes. The stye she managed to give herself by trying to shove them in took weeks to go away, but the pain of resemblance didn’t. 

Summers also meant more time with her remaining father.

‘More time’ was always something up in the air, because Genesis Rhapsodos was sometimes neither here nor there. Rubbing the ribbed cotton shoulder of her sweater, Saoirse ducked her head...looked blankly at the wooden slats on the porch floor. It wasn’t like he was a bad parent; saying that would have been a lie. Never once-as far as her memory served her-had her father ever made her feel like she was unloved. There were times when he made her feel like she made things complicated and painful for him, but she had never felt like he didn’t love her. In youth, the struggles of parenthood escaped her because she didn’t know what to look for. Yes, sometimes there was crying...late at night...past midnight when the black velvet of the sky swallowed everything around it. She could remember climbing the stairs to the loft to try and see what was wrong...many, many times...wanting to fix it...feeling terrified even though she didn’t know why. And, yes, sometimes there were times when she felt alone, when she felt misunderstood or like no one was listening to her. 

This would be one of those times. 

Putting her book to the side Saoirse stared down the driveway at the rough...blackened tire burns on the asphalt. They were the only reminder of the fact that her father had been there in the first place. He’d dropped her off; of course. It was the weekend, they’d spent most of the last five days together; coordinating between her school schedule and his work schedule. They ate dinner; sometimes on the couch and sometimes at the kitchen table if Genesis was feeling particularly parent-ey. She understood, on a subliminal level, that her father was never going to approach parenting in the way that her peers’ parents did. Not because he was an idiot, but because he was-by no fault of his own-different from them in ways that were irreversible and concrete. Genesis Rhapsodos was raised as an offering to a company, bred to be a killer, as he sometimes said. It was hard to believe such a thing, as a child; that her Dad could be vicious, that he could be so cold as to take lives without thinking about it...without batting an eye. She knew better now, of course, knew that those deaths weighed on him. And there were times...when he thought she wasn’t looking...that she could see that inner monstrosity. Because as nurturing and as loving as he could be, he was fiercely frigid to those who didn’t know him; aloof, distant and bitterly cynical in ways that she was not. 

_”Predator.”_

Something spat by a civilian, a classmate...it didn’t really matter. She’d heard it a thousand times before. And it was true...a little bit. Genesis’ existence was basely centered off the glory of the kill. But it wasn’t his fault, not really. At the same time, there _were_ times when she wished for some form of normalcy; for a togetherness that wasn’t so tenuous, so unstable. Saoirse didn’t want a different family, she just wanted-quite badly, really-for her family to be happy. It seemed such a simple thing...a little thing...but it wasn’t. Not for a man who had lost so much that he loved, not for a SOLDIER who had served a farce for so long. She didn’t know the circumstances behind Sephiroth’s death, and she didn’t ask because every time she brought her other father up Genesis looked like something inside of him was being twisted beyond recognition. It was a deep pain; it held horrible, frightening secrets that she didn’t think either of them were ready to face. 

The little moments. 

She lived for them. Not necessarily the happy moments, because she had plenty of those; but the singular, painite-rare snatches of time when she could really see Genesis. And they were painfully singular and agonizing fleeting, but she still had them...had them gathered close to her heart because she couldn’t think of a single other thing to do with them. There was a time he came home from work on her ninth birthday; when his keys jingled in the lock and she’d run to hug him because she just felt like she should. He’d surprised her then, surprised her by putting on some ancient, disgusting form of disco music that made her want to shriek in horror and danced her around the living room. It was such a natural thing, so smooth in its transition and when he laughed it was terribly free and full with an edge of mischief mixed with fondness and she could _see_ him. Saoirse could see the man her father had been; full of fire and wit and intelligence and fun. Because the Genesis Rhapsodos of yore was a man to be reckoned with; not a clown, as some might see such an attitude. No, much more masterful than that. A courtier and a flirt, though not to her, of course. 

And she ruined it. 

She ruined it and she full well knew she did because after five minutes she burst out crying. She cried because it was so happy that it was too much. Because she hated knowing what she was missing. And she hurt him when she did that, hurt him even if she didn’t mean to. Somehow, without saying anything at all, he knew what was wrong and he disappeared again; retreated even as he comforted her and she hated herself, hated him, hated Sephiroth for being the ghost that lingered between them. She didn’t understand the emotion at the time, didn’t understand why it bothered her so much because she was, after all, only nine. Now she knew better, but at the time she had nothing to do but wish she hadn’t smashed it all to pieces with her tears. It wouldn’t have lasted very long regardless, it never did, but there was a part of her that was so _angry_ at herself for doing that. There were other moments like that; other brief windows into the mystery of him that bewildered her as much as they uplifted her. When she made him laugh, _truly_ laugh, with his head thrown back and his eyes crinkled up she wanted to freeze him there, wanted to just press pause on him so he could feel that happiness forever. She could live like that, with him frozen in mirth because it was so much better than what he was otherwise. And he wasn’t cruel; he was fair and gentle and probably such a polar opposite to her when she thought about how he was with everyone else that she wondered why he bothered, but she’d have taken his cruelty over his inner confinement….

...She’d have taken it if it meant he could be happy, because that it what children wish for. 

Someone set a dish down on the kitchen counter with some force and Saoirse jumped before recollecting herself. Looking out at the yard again, she shook her head. She didn’t know where he went...when he was like this. Brooding, angry, withdrawn. He at least had the sense not to take her with him, she doubted she’d have liked finding out what he was up to. And he was angry, angry at her, angry at Angeal. Angry because she’d consented where he wouldn’t but she wasn’t going to say no, not to such an opportunity. And it wasn’t because she particularly _wanted_ Sephiroth back; she didn’t know him, after all. But she did know that maybe...just maybe it would make things better. And if it didn’t make things better maybe it would provide closure. She didn’t like that concept particularly; didn’t like the idea that once everything was over and done with the father she had never met would be an eternally closed door, but maybe closed doors were what they needed. All of them. 

Saoirse liked Vincent. 

She liked him because he was gloomy in a manner that was a little bit adorable. And she knew that she ought to feel angry at him for failing to prevent things, but really, what could he have done? She didn’t know the whole of it, not really, but she understood that a choice made could not be unmade so many years in the future. And Vincent was honest...if a little bit guarded. He was forthright in ways that Genesis was often convoluted. She’d never begrudged her father his obscurity, but it was relieving to talk to someone who would simply say all there was to know without leaving out the hard parts for the sake of her perceived fragility. A part of her acknowledged that Vincent didn’t love her the way Genesis did. There wasn’t anything paternal about it, and Genesis was fiercely, sometimes tyrannically paternal. He didn’t coddle her because he thought she was weak, but because he didn’t want her to worry. That wasn’t a cruelty, it was a form of deep, endearing love and she wouldn’t dismiss it just because she was bitter about it. She doubted that she could ever see the gunslinger as a grandfather, but she did see him as a friend. He didn’t ask her to call him anything other than his given name in any case, and she suspected they were both quite relieved about it. 

“He’ll come around.” 

Tilting her head, Saoirse straightened somewhat as Willow spoke, as she moved from the door to the porch to sit with her. It was the same place that Genesis had smashed the bottle of vodka days before...the same place where he’d shouted-desperately and hysterically-at the top of his lungs while his Angeal stood speechless and helpless. Willow was simple in ways that the rest of them weren’t. More than likely because she hadn’t lived the horrors that they had lived. Saoirse didn’t envy her, but she did envy her her future, her happiness. She was hopelessly pretty, almost annoyingly kind and devastatingly intelligent without all the baggage. As if reading her thoughts, the woman in question laughed softly and shook her head. 

“Oh Saoirse” she sighed, leaning forward. “I’m sorry, I know it’s not so simple, and I know you’re not a little girl. But your father loves you.” Blonde curls caught the light of the midday sun as she sat back in her chair. “That, at least, is something you know for sure.” 

Swallowing, the younger woman put her book to the side and worried her lip before replying. 

“I know” she replied. “But...I hurt him.” 

“You don’t” was the gentle, emphatic response. Willow waited for her to look at her before continuing. When she did, the solemnity in her expression was earnest. “You _don’t_ , and you didn’t. Love is…” a pause, and the older woman’s face screwed up exasperatedly. “Complicated, messy. It’s not easy, it’s not ever easy and Genesis...well, he never had closure, and I don’t think he’s sure if he wants it.” 

“But what if they find him?” Saoirse muttered, looking at her nails. “What if they bring him back?”

There was a long silence this time, and when Willow spoke again, it was halting. 

“I…” another pause, another stretch of wordless timespace quickly followed by a sigh. “This is beyond my ken” was quiet admittance. “I don’t know anything about it at all, so I couldn’t tell you what might or might not be. I don’t know if it would be better, I can’t promise you anything in that regard, and so I won’t.” Another exhalation. “Saoirse, the most important thing for you to remember in all of this is that you’re loved, by a lot of people, and that you’re not alone.” This was followed by a grimace. “I know it’s substandard, commonplace statement. But it’s the truth. It doesn’t fix this-” a gesture, out at the tire marks in the yard. “-Doesn’t fix the fact that he’s upset, not in the least.”

It didn’t fix it. 

Bowing her head once more, Saoirse acknowledged that nothing that anyone, save for Genesis, could say would fix it. She’d exhausted the topic herself in her mind; turned it over and over again. Talking about it wouldn’t make the issue go away, she could only wait it out and hope for the best. She hadn’t bothered asking Angeal or Aerith what their plans were regarding Sephiroth. Aerith had gone away after the argument between the two former SOLDIERs and she hadn’t seen her since. Maybe she was looking, maybe she was trying to gather herself together again, it didn’t particularly matter. She’d told Genesis what she acquiesced to on the ride home and he hadn’t said a word. He didn’t yell at her, but he drove faster and things were tense between them the subsequent week. Really, she’d have preferred him exploding...but he never did...not at her...and he never had. Sometimes she didn’t know what made her so special that she was spared so much of what the redhead did to others. And she did know, she was his daughter, of course. But that didn’t make her infallible. 

“Do you have siblings?” Saoirse asked quietly. 

Willow looked surprised by the question, and she understood. It was a drastic change in topic, after all, but she couldn’t think on the whole of it anymore without driving herself crazy. 

“I don’t” was the gentle response. Willow smiled. “Just me, I’m afraid, a bit like you. I don’t think my parents wanted more children, but I never thought to ask them.” 

Saoirse frowned. 

“They live...far away?” 

Another smile, and this time it was tinged with sadness.

“My parents lived in a sector close to HQ” she said quietly. “Something happened that obliterated that sector, wiped it off the map really. They died.” 

“She’s old enough to know.” 

Both women jumped when Angeal spoke. Leaning against the door to the living room, the former FIRST raised an eyebrow. He was dressed for patrol, and Soairse guessed that it wouldn’t be long before he headed out, his cruiser was parked in the yard. In the kitchen, Gillian could be heard getting supplies from the cabinets for a late lunch. Swallowing, the redhead focused her attention on the conversation better. 

“Old enough to know what?” she asked quietly. 

“Maybe this is something Genesis ought to tell her” Willow interjected quietly. When Saoirse shot her resentful look, her expression became apologetic. “I’m not saying that because I don’t think you’re ready to hear it...but because this...it’s something private...something very _painful_ for your father.” The word _’painful’_ was shot in Angeal’s direction. “I know you fought” Willow continued. “But Angeal, please. I’m not angry about it, I just don’t want to-”

“-Genesis got sick” Angeal interrupted; bluntly, forcefully. “Extremely sick, he was dying and we couldn’t find a cure. Sephiroth...he cared for him, for weeks, months...watched him waste away before his eyes and loved him anyway. He came to me, begged me to look for a solution with him. We found one, but not before Genesis was clinically dead.” 

“But he’s here now” Saoirse said numbly. 

“He is” the dark-haired man agreed. “But Sephiroth...when Genesis stopped breathing, his inhibitions were unfettered. He flew himself into a reactor. Presumably, or so I think, to follow Genesis. It exploded and took out that sector with it. Sephiroth survived, Willow’s parents didn’t.” 

The guilt was tremendous.

Even as she felt it, Saoirse acknowledged that it didn’t feel rational, didn’t even feel like _she_ should be feeling it. There were other times when her emotions felt similarly different, displaced even. It was uncomfortable; not intolerable...but strange. This time, however, it was more of a residual feeling, like whatever had been there was simply transmitting something that echoed. There was a sense of void...of emptiness that was nearly intolerable. 

“I’m sorry” she said reflexively, her voice trembling.

“It wasn’t your fault” Willow gasped, looking horrified by her tears. She sent a glare Angeal’s way and he at least had the sense to look chastised. “It wasn’t! And it wasn’t Sephiroth’s fault either really. Grief makes people blind, keeps them from seeing sense. He didn’t lay waste to the sector himself, he was looking for a way out of his pain.”

“Most people wouldn’t be so forgiving” Saoirse whispered. 

“I’m a therapist” was the gentle reply. “It’s my job to understand the underlying motivations behind the things people do. And I _was_ angry...for a little while. Mostly because the propaganda Shinra fed the public was based on lies, and I took those lies for verity and didn’t bother to look further.” Willow took a deep breath. “It’s easy” she said bitterly. “To hate someone without knowing how they actually feel. Sephiroth was easy to hate, but through no fault of his own.” A smile, and this one was-if possible-sadder than the first. “So really, I owe you an apology, for judging your father for being in such terrible pain. My parents...I loved them, they were so good to me, so kind and understanding and loving. But Genesis was the only love Sephiroth ever knew. He wasn’t emotionally prepared for losing that kind of love.” Willow closed her eyes. “And so, you see, Saoirse. If that was what Genesis’ temporary death did to Sephiroth, you must understand a little bit, of what Genesis is going through now.” 

“But you recovered” Saoirse pointed out. “You’re not...broken, like he is.” 

Angeal made a low sound in the back of his throat; something she had never heard from him before. It was pained...ruined really, that sound.

“Genesis and Sephiroth didn’t have the upbringing I did” Willow murmured. “Or the security, or the reassurances.”

“He came-” Angeal broke off and cleared his throat. “Genesis, I mean” he continued gruffly. “Came over, to my house in Banora, every day.” Blue eyes were hidden behind onyx lashes. “And every day, he had a new bruise. Shikro beat the hell out of him until he was big enough to fight back and figured out that he could.” Large hands scrubbed reflexively over muscular arms. “And Sephiroth was...well, he was brutalized as a child. There’s no other word for it.”

“Neither of them were taught coping skills when it came to bereavement” Willow continued when it was clear that Angeal couldn’t anymore. “Neither of them knew nurture, only nature.” Blonde curls bounced as she shook her head. “It’s a miracle really” was the tight continuation. “That they were able to love each other at all. But when they did, and when Genesis lost that love, he lost something...very large.” 

She hadn’t known. 

Blinking furiously, trying to keep the tears that were trying to well up in her eyes at bay, Saoirse clenched her fingers to keep them from trembling. She had always wondered why they didn’t see Shikro. Genesis talked about him sparingly, distantly. Like he was a high school acquaintance that he vaguely knew but had mostly forgotten about. She’d tried asking, once or twice, but he brushed the topic to the side or ignored her completely. Now, of course, it made more sense. It also made her want to strangle her grandfather which was a strange feeling and was a bit displaced like her guilt had been. It was hard to imagine her father in a position where he was incapable of defending himself; where he was helpless against the actions of others. A child, however, could not defend themselves from the person who was supposed to love, cherish, and protect them. 

“He could have told me!” she exclaimed, hating when her voice broke. 

“No” Angeal said flatly. “He couldn’t have. Genesis loves you, Saoirse. And he didn’t, and doesn’t want you to feel sorry for him.” Another pause. “He’s never struck you” he added, and it was a statement, not a question. “Never raised his voice at you; now you know why.” 

It was too much. 

It was all a little too much to bear, even in front of two people who knew her well and who had treated her kindly. When Saoirse stood, it seemed like Willow might try and reach for her, but Angeal stepped forward to put a hand on her shoulder. His girlfriend turned and leveled him with such a fierce stare it was a miracle his head didn’t catch fire. Still, she settled. Not in an obedient way, but in a manner that suggested she understood why he had stopped her. As Saoirse stood in a muddled haze of grief and panic, Willow rose as well before stepping back somewhat; towards the door to the living room.

“We’ll give you some space” she said quietly. “Angeal has to go on shift, but I’ll be here and so will Gillian if you need to talk.” 

Furiously, Saoirse nodded, gulping back the emotion that threatened to consume her. Angeal remained but a few moments longer, his eyes searching her face for something...she didn’t know what. Whatever he was looking for, he either found it or he didn’t, because he disappeared all the same. The driveway seemed darker now, seemed tainted. With grief or with realization, she didn’t know. Only that there was nothing she could do now except hope that whatever Aerith did, it would bring them answers. She determined not to tell Genesis, not now anyway, because she truly didn’t think it would help anything. He’d be embarrassed, or worse, furious with Angeal for telling her anything at all. And what could she say to him, really? _Apologise_ for the way he’d been treated as a child? That wouldn’t change anything, it wouldn’t reverse the damage that had been done. It would only add to the bleak truth that as much as she wished things were different, they weren’t. She was one person, and sometimes it felt like she was fighting a war against an invisible force that was trying to take everything she loved away from her even as she wildly clutched it to her chest...trying to keep it safe but failing. Grasping at the porch railing, she hung her head as the last vestiges of her composure broke free. 

Saoirse cried...but she didn’t cry for herself. 

She cried for her father. 

And then she cried for the father who she’d never met...and quite possibly never would.


	7. Chapter 7

Betrayed. 

Genesis felt betrayed. It was an irrational feeling, granted; ridiculous even. It wasn’t like Saoirse wasn’t her own person, like she didn’t have the right to have her own emotions, make her own choices, or stand up for what she believed in. He’d raised her to be that way; to be strong, to trust her gut, to never feel cowed; even in the face of an angry redhead twenty something years her senior. He never, ever, wanted her to feel like she didn’t have a voice, and he certainly didn’t want her to feel like her decisions weren’t hers to make. He knew what that felt like...that emotional and physical incarceration. The former Commander was fully aware of what being a slave to something bigger than you felt like and he’d have rather twisted himself into knots than give his daughter the impression that she was beholden to him in some way, shape, or form. He was her parent, yes; but he wasn’t her judgemental jailer, nor did he want to be. 

He still felt betrayed. 

His rational psyche understood that this was to be expected. What else was he supposed to feel when his daughter told him that she’d given his best friend the ‘go ahead’ to find his most certainly dead as a doornail boyfriend? And, sure, Aerith had approached him with it and he had lost his everloving shit, but what would anyone in his position do? _’Oh, hey, Genesis, we would like to revisit your tortured past on a half-ass whim that we might be able to de-zombify your lover. Isn’t that just great?’_ Snorting, the redhead lowered his chin somewhat and stared into the depths of his coffee mug. It wasn’t helping, the coffee. He had a hangover the size of an asteroid-rare for him, usually a good indicator he’d overindulged-and his body was so sore he was actually feeling his age. 

It didn’t help. 

He’d dropped Saoirse off at Gillian’s because she had no place going where he was going; no place knowing how he privately and inhumanely dealt with his pain. Nobody needed to see that; it was intensely self-destructive, intensely damaging, and desperately personal. He had no secret, voyeuristic urge to share that agony with anyone save for the nameless, vaguely blurred person whose face he’d shoved into the mattress so he didn’t have to talk to them through it. His youngish philosophies regarding the value of a good, hard, wordless fuck were null and void. They didn’t _fill_ the chasm; not really. Sometimes they made it seem wider; darker and more destructive. Certainly, they didn’t assuage anything...did nothing but feed that emptiness. 

“Dad.” 

Different. 

Looking at his daughter...his only daughter...his only child, Genesis reflected that Saoirse’s bearing was different. She was careful around him now, and normally that would have made him wither up inside and feel monstrous, but it wasn’t a fearful sort of care. Instead, it was a _delicate_ kind of care, like she was trying not to break him apart. He wasn’t so far gone that he didn’t notice such things, that he didn’t care, didn’t want to understand. It hurt him...a little bit, that Saoirse would ever think that she couldn’t talk to him, or that he was too fragile for her to confide in. More than that, it made him hate himself, made him bitterly despise his mercuirty because no child deserved such tenuousness…such an impression of paternal-or, even parental-instability. Clearing his throat, the redhead pushed his mug away and looked at Saoirse more fully; noted the shadows underneath those Sephiroth-green eyes and the downturn of her mouth. 

“Sit down” he muttered before his guilt could choke all verbosity right out of him. When she hesitated still, he took her hand. “Please. I want to talk to you.” 

They’d decorated the kitchen together. 

Many, many years ago, that is. Genesis had taken Saoirse to a home appliance store and let her pick out the colors. He was both surprised and grudgingly fond when she’d immediately went for white and black. It was so ‘Generalish’, so Seph-ish that he nearly blubbered in the middle of the flooring department. Of course, she went in the complete opposite direction with the utensils-a bright, fire hydrant red, to be exact-and the dinnerware so he supposed maybe she’d gotten a bit of him as well but the similarities were impossible to miss. The kitchen itself was set along a dividing wall between the dining room and the living room; unenclosed and framed by a half-ovular bar table and respective stools. It was here that he sat; with a set of solid red, blue, and yellow vases to his left and some paper sunflowers that Saoirse had made in third grade to his right. Sliding onto one of the aforementioned barstools, the redhead in question took her hand back and wrung it fretfully with the other. 

It was hard to start a conversation like this.

Hard, because while Genesis recognized that his daughter was older, he still had that automatic, parental impulse to protect her from the pain of verity. He wanted to see her grow up happy, but he also wanted to see her free from worry...from despair and from confusion. It was an unrealistic outlook because no matter how much he wished otherwise, the world was not a kind place. People were not kind and they wouldn’t change for the sake of one singular little-even if passionate-girl, no matter how much he loved her to pieces. He was also, contrary to popular belief, terrible with women. Conversations, really...with the opposite sex usually ended up in situations of terrible offense that while unintentional, were unavoidable. And he knew it was different, knew that talking to his daughter was different than talking to someone he barely knew but the apprehension and anxiety were still there. 

“I’m so-”

“Don’t” Genesis cut in, more sharply than he intended. When Saoirse looked miserable he swiveled on his stool and leaned forward, took both her hands this time and drew them close. “Don’t” he repeated, gently this time. “Don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I told Angeal-”

“-You told ‘Geal to look for your Dad” he said gently, cupping her cheek. “How monstrous would I be, Saoirse, to tell you that you were wrong to do that?” A tight, painful feeling rose in his chest but he pushed it down. “I love you” he said carefully, awkwardly. “And I am not going to be mad at you for trying to fix this mess.” 

Green eyes filled with tears. 

“But you were” was the whispered response. “You were mad at me.” 

Resolutely, he shook his head. 

“No” he said dryly, pulling a hand back. “I was mad at myself. Mad that it was even necessary that you felt you ought to put yourself in that position.” He sighed. “Because you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t have to.” 

She didn’t believe him. 

Pursing his lips and observing his daughter’s visage, Genesis acknowledged that she had every right not to. After all, he had felt some subliminal level of betrayal. Irrational, perhaps, but present all the same. And it was easy to put it on himself, easy to place the blame on his own actions and not acknowledge that he felt otherwise, but it was also dishonest. Saoirse was the only family, by blood, that he had. He couldn’t disregard that just because he wanted to make things better, it wouldn’t help them find a middle ground, wouldn’t help them reciprocate with one another. There was more bothering her than her actions regarding Angeal, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out, but he couldn’t press her for her honesty if he didn’t give her his own. 

“Sometimes” he said slowly. “When people do things you don’t want them to do it feels like they’ve abandoned you.” When Saorise flinched he squeezed her hand. “I felt that way” he admitted. “But it’s not true, not in the least. I’d lashed out at Angeal, said awful things to him” he waved a hand. “You heard, and I’m sorry you heard; and then you did that, told me you did that-which, honesty, I don’t think I would have managed it with my father-” Something flashed in her eyes at the mention of Shikro. It gave him pause, because it was a _vicious_ , hateful look. He nearly pursued it there and then, because he’d never seen her have such a look before. Genesis was almost alarmed because her eyes whispered that they’d have liked to do harm, and it was such a strong reaction, so unlike her. Instead, he tucked that information away for later and continued. “-And I appreciate it, I didn’t at the time, but I always have in the long run. I don’t want you to feel like you have to keep everything inside just because I’m some sort of emotional pansy.” 

“I don’t think that” Saoirse said, her gaze sliding to the island counter. 

Genesis smirked. 

“Well, thanks and all that, but we both know that I’m not exactly the healthiest person to walk the face of the earth. And just because I’m a shitshow doesn’t meant that you need to pander to my shitshow. Gaia knows I’ve had enough people doing that for me.” He bent his head and lifted a hand to tap his daughter’s chin until she was looking at him again. “No matter what. And you are enough, you are more than enough.” Her lip trembled and he made a soft _’tsk’_ ’ing sound. “I don’t tell you that, I don’t. And I’m such a miserable S.O.B., I think I give you the impression that you don’t make me happy, but you are a gift, you will always be a gift. I wanted you before you were born, and just because things didn’t turn out the way I thought they would doesn’t change the fact that I still want you here, as my little girl. Because you are my little girl, and I wouldn’t trade you for anything…” he breathed out shakily. “I wouldn’t even trade you for Sephiroth; and he certainly wouldn’t thank me for it. Understand” he said quietly. “That I _need_ your honesty, and I value it, as I value you. And I do, Saoirse, I do value you.”

She hugged him.

Really, she fairly threw herself at him; and that broke his heart a little bit because it told him how much she had needed to hear him say such things to her. Saoirse practically fell off her chair to hug him and it was only due to his still fairly decent balance that they kept upright at all. She sniffled into his shoulder and he pretended not to notice because he knew it would only embarrass her. With her hands gripping the back of his shirt like he was going to disappear he couldn’t help but inwardly self-flagellate because he _was_ rather fucking smarmy about so many things and sometimes he wondered if he’d ever manage to get it right. It was moments like this that grounded him, and he was always so mentally absent that he overlooked the value of them...overlooked her and then farced it up as not wanting to hurt her when really it hurt _him_ to open up so much because then he would see...see how starving she was to know that she mattered. 

“You’re not a shitshow” was the watery mumble into his lapels, and he chuckled, a little sadly. 

“Language” he admonished, but there was no weight behind it. She made a sound that he supposed was meant to have been teenagerish grumbling but really just came out as sounding full of snot. Lifting a hand to card through hair as scarlet as his own he closed his eyes. “ _I’m_ the sorry one” he muttered. “How do you put up with me?” 

She didn’t answer for a while and he let the moment spin out because he didn’t want to curtail it by being a pushy asshole. 

“I love you a lot” she grumbled. “And you’re not that bad I guess.” 

Again, he laughed, but this time it was genuine.

“You don’t have to flatter me” he chortled. “We both know that the concept of me being good is a little bullshit.” 

She drew back again and he let her. He was never one for prolonging any sort of hugging due to the fact that he clearly remembered being a teenager and hating hugs from older people. Green eyes surveyed him seriously and he determined not to draw comparisons as they made a study of his visage that was rather too stringent for someone her age. 

“I think” she said slowly before apparently deciding to make her a comment a question and not a statement. “Can we go out to eat lunch?” 

Genesis was about to open his mouth to say that _‘of course’_ they could go out and eat lunch. Because it had been a horrendously long time since they’d done anything dad-daughterly of the sort and the idea of it was attractive; mostly due to the fact he’d been dying for a sandwich from a deli about two blocks down. Saoirse was particularly fond of their ice cream. He wanted to forget the stain of the night before; the stain of so many nights...at least for now. There was the desperate, urgent sensation of owing her that; though he knew that she wouldn’t like to hear it. 

And of course his phone went off. 

Specifically it went off and he hastily reached into his pocket to turn off the ringer only to have it buzz angrily on the kitchen counter where he left it. Whoever it was called him five times and it was during that time that Saoirse eyed him with a kind of fond amusement bordering on exasperation. 

“I’m not dying of starvation” she pointed out dryly and in a manner of address that was so much like him he had to resist the urge to slap himself. “If you answer that call I won’t drop over and wither away.” 

“They’re disturbing our bonding moment” Genesis said crankily over the now rather NSFW buzzing of his cellular device. 

Scarlet brows-not his-drew together in an expression of amusement even has Saoirse giggled. 

“Dad, it’s Angeal. If you don’t pick up the phone he’s just going to come over and break the door down.” 

“It’s rude” the older man said defeatedly even as he reached for the offensive electronic. “To look at other people’s phones.” His daughter wrinkled her nose at him and he pointed a mock-stern finger in her direction even as he opened his mouth to speak. “Yes, ‘Geal, hello. What the hell do you want?” 

The cheerfulness in his tone must have taken his childhood friend aback, because for a moment he couldn’t hear anything on the other end of the line but heavy breathing. Really, his former fellow Commander sounded like he had either gained an insurmountable amount of weight and climbed a flight of stairs or perhaps run a double marathon. There was-abruptly-a sensation of terrible anticipation, because while Genesis could occasionally be dense, he wasn’t entirely ignorant of their last topic of conversation. With a pang of guilt-that he angrily shoved elsewhere-the redhead acknowledged that he did owe Angeal an apology. Not necessarily for feeling the way he did, but for the things he’d said; because they weren’t true and both of them knew it. There were, of course, too many exorbitantly dramatic fights behind them to really facilitate any sort of residual grudge. Angeal knew him better than to take his words to heart, and Genesis knew better than to assume that he would. 

**_”Genesis, where are you?”_ **

Urgent, his tone was urgent.

Leaning back atop the barstool and resting an elbow on the counter, the former FIRST raised an eyebrow. 

“I am, at the moment, home. With Saoirse. But we were about to go out for lunch you see, and-”

**_”You need to come to HQ.”_ **

Squashing the imminent dread that rose in his psyche and washed like the bitter tang of copper over his tongue, Genesis looked at his nails.

“Do we still call it HQ?” he asked breezily. “I’d forgotten, and y’know how I feel about you bossing me aroun-”

**_”-You need to come to HQ now, Genesis. It’s-”_ **

“-If you tell me it’s about-” the redhead struggled with his words through gritted teeth. “-About _Seph_ , Angeal, I swear to Gaia I’ll-”

**_”-It’s not about Sephiroth!”_** was the barked response. **_”It’s about Hojo, and the Science Division, and it’s huge and a mess and you need to get down here now!”_**

He was abruptly hung up on. 

Specifically, Genesis was so abruptly hung up on that his childhood friend managed to cut himself off before the redhead even had a chance to reply. Staring at the device in his hand and wondering if the entire world was just prone to having _’really fucking bad ideas’_ , he slowly raised his head to look at Saoirse, whose expression was apprehensive but eager. Some part of him despaired at that, because obviously his rampant sense of adventure was hereditarily contagious and he didn’t like it one little bit. She would-he knew, quite instantly-want answers, explanations. His daughter hadn’t been able to hear what Angeal was saying over the phone, but the urgency in his tone would have been apparent. She knew about his past as a SOLDIER, knew there were some loose ends in his chronological livelihood that he had yet to fill. And he didn’t _want_ her involved, but he also knew that by not telling her anything he would only further encourage her insatiable quest for answers...and that wouldn’t do. Clearing his throat, the former Commander opened his mouth. 

“I have to go down to HQ” he said hoarsely. “Something’s going on, I don’t know what” he added when he saw her opening her mouth to ask questions. “But I’ll tell you when I get back, alright?” 

She wanted to come with him.

He could see it in her eyes; and with his own he _begged_ her not to press him, because he didn’t want to have to drive a wedge between them by refusing her. Genesis didn’t know what he was facing. As far as he knew it might be a technological or Administrational issue that Angeal just happened to go a little bit batshit over. His gut told him otherwise, however. It was, so he surmised, too much to wish that Mort from Accounting had screwed up the books so much that Angeal went ‘round the bend. Besides, HQ wasn’t in Angeal’s jurisdiction; not when it came to law enforcement. Really, he had no idea what the man was doing there at all; which did not bode well for his hopes and dreams of an easy solution. 

“Okay.” 

It was a reluctant acquiescence; but also a necessary one. They both knew it, though the fact of it went unspoken between them. Genesis was-quite painfully-conscious of the times he had left her behind with such an expression before. He had hoped, quite desperately, that they would have more time to speak with each other; this wasn’t the way he had wanted things to go. And it was never easy with them, never simple, never quite sweet enough...never shared enough and never honest enough. Looking at his daughter, with her honest eyes and her worried visage...his heart ached. Reaching to grasp her shoulder; the redhead diverted his attention at the last minute and instead leaned over to kiss her forehead. She made a typically teenagerish face and he chuckled before repeating the gesture.

“You’re a good kid” he muttered against her hair. “More than I deserve.” 

Saoirse laughed, and it was a brittle but forgiving thing, even as she hugged him. 

“Dad” she said with all the angst in the world; all the angst he had given her. 

“....You’re good too.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Warning:** Extreme Violence

Deepground...they called it. 

Pivoting to avoid a sharp, unhesitant uppercut, Angeal reflected grimly that he was really the only one fully qualified to take on such an opponent at the current time. They were outnumbered, four to one, but they were holding...and they were only holding because the men stationed in HQ at the time were _his_ men...ready to drop everything and anything in order to follow _his_ orders. The fact that they’d still do so after so much time didn’t make the former Commander feel better, though it did increase their likelihood of success. That didn’t mean the odds were positive. Really, they were horrible and there was no other way to look at it. He’d not anticipated his opponent; he was _not prepared_ for this, and he didn’t have the Buster Sword, just a stupid standard-issue handgun and that wasn’t going to do him any good. A cop, a veteran, and an army of brainwashed SOLDIERs; 

...It sounded like the beginning of an off-color tavern joke.

Only it wasn’t a joke, not at all. And the only reason that it wasn’t a joke was because some sorry, overzealous idiot in Intelligence got a hair up his arse to prove that he wasn’t green and hacked into Shinra’s old logging files on a bet. The door to the massive holding was disengaged from its lock and a luminescent, blue purgatory swept from the depths of that which they had previously thought uninhabited. It was a miracle he’d been there in the first place, because if he hadn’t been, HQ would have fallen like a stack of cards. There was the slick, wet sound of sundered flesh; Angeal kicked out viciously and shattered some nameless person’s nose. They dropped like a rock, but it didn’t matter...there were more...there were always more. 

They were on the ground floor.

Somewhat close to the lobby, really, and the former First supposed it was a little bit ironic that Death had been slavering a few feet from Debbie Hawthorn and her terrible glasses but he didn’t really have time to think on it. It was a sea...a tide...and they did not back down...they did not surrender when offered recompense. He knew, without a doubt, that if they were allowed into the city, the population would be decimated. So he’d shouldered his sense of honor and plodded forward as best he could...slipped and slid on carmine-soaked tiles as the pile of bodies-both friend and foe-grew ever higher. Someone managed to get him a reasonably sized sword from what remained of the armory...if you could even call it an armory when it housed armor. Outfitting was non-existent, so the semi-automatics and katanas they used to store were, veritably, in the wind. 

Hojo. 

It was all Hojo. It _stank_ of Hojo before he even had time to bark angry phrases at the technician who’d started the problem in the first place. And oh he had barked, because Deepground had the potential to _wipe the map_. It was dangerous to a point that it was almost comical, and the humor in it came from the sheer insanity of the genius behind it. What better way, after all, to take over the world than to have your very own personalized army? Angeal felt-quite abruptly-horrified by the implications of what could have happened should Hojo have been able to cover his tracks and remain in the company. Dying in their sleep-quick as you please-was a real possibility. It would have been so easy to take them out...child’s play, if he wanted to be macabre about it. 

Sheer will.

They were holding the front through sheer will and spacial logistics because you could only fit so many angry blue people through the exit point at a single moment. It didn’t mean that they weren’t horribly compromised, and it _certainly_ didn’t mean that they could let them go...but it was something. It was an advantage, and Angeal had long ago been taught to mete out his advantages in combat. Rolling a sore shoulder, the ex-Commander leapt upwards to avoid gunfire; managed to get his feet steady on top of the reception desk before sweeping the sword to the left; feeling an immense sense of satisfaction when the mutated Soldier creeping up on him-all snarls and slavering jaws-let out a yip of pain, fell to the floor, and did not move. Blue eyes surveyed the carnaged with a practiced ease. 

Formation was good.

_Good_ but not _great_ ; acceptable, really. His old platoon was stationed in a fanned out position just before the entrance, and they’d lost a few already. The few policemen assigned to HQ had taken up long-range assault positions from the East and West hallways but they’d lost so many it was hard to say how long they’d last. Genesis had mentioned he was on his way perhaps half an hour ago, but it would take him a long time to reach HQ by standard traffic. No more were the swift, convenient helicopters taking elite members of the military to and fro at their whim. Most of the birds had been dismantled squarely due to the fact that they were atrociously unfriendly to the environment. If his friend was lucky, he’d be able to get a lift from someone.

_”On your six!”_

Not his six, apparently, even though Angeal about-faced to check. He was-abruptly-quite glad that SOLDIER had been dismantled before this happened, because the uniforms of the lower-class opponents were clearly barely-altered mimicries of your standard-issue SOLDIER garb. In the dark-or in the thick of combat, combat like this-he’d hardly have been able to tell the difference. It was a little alarming...to consider the fact that some of the individuals attacking them had to have been former SOLDIERs. He didn’t recognize them-though it was hard to, considering their apparel-but it didn’t make it an easier pill to swallow. Ramming the hilt of his sword into an unsuspecting temple, he readjusted his grip before refocusing on the melee. 

Grimly, he acknowledged that eventually they’d have to retreat.

A woman came for him this time; one with red hair...a sneering, vicious face and...a bow and arrow as a main weapon. Angeal really could have snorted, he really could have. They danced around each other for a while and she threw some purring, sultry insults at him that he supposed were meant to make his manhood shrivel but only made him impatient. She had other weapons of course...and her name was Rosso the Crimson but he really couldn’t give a damn less what her name was, there was an issue of greater priority-the priority being societal peace-and he didn’t have the _time-_ -

“-Fuck, do you ever shut up?” 

Angeal barely had time to register that it was Genesis speaking before the crimson tip of Rapier appeared between Rosso’s shoulder blades. Blood spattered between them...transitioned from spray to river and he wanted to ask his childhood friend how he’d kept ahold of Rapier in the mess of it all but the scarlet-haired ex-First was too busy gloating over his kill. And he was _gloating_. Really, he seemed to take a great deal of pleasure in leaning over an arched, barely-living neck so he could twist a delicate chin his way...so he could look his victim in the eyes.

“Honey” he drawled. “I’d take you to dinner, you’re pretty, but you’re tacky pretty and you’ve got a mouth on you.” As if to prove a point, Rapier delved deeper and Rosso’s body went limp before Genesis let it collapse to the floor in a heap. Kicking it purely-so Angeal assumed-for the sake of doing so, the older man smirked and raised an eyebrow. “Talk’s cheap, darling” he crooned before lifting his head to nod at Angeal. “Should’ve learned that a long time ago.” 

“Pot, kettle” the former Commander couldn’t help but interject dryly. Genesis snorted.

“Yeah, but at least I make it look good.” The humor dissipated between them as they looked out over the writhing sea of combat. “ _This_ doesn’t look good” was the flat continuation. “What are we looking at?”

“They keep coming” Angeal muttered, nudging the corpse between them out of the way with the toe of his boot. 

“Do we know who they are?” was the sharp response as Rapier arced through the air. 

Just like old times. 

It was...but it wasn’t. It was bitter in ways that Angeal didn’t think he could elucidate properly. The fact that they could fall back into field lingo...into their old personas so easily was disheartening. It made him wonder if therapy had done him any good at all. In consideration of outlook, the former Commander knew that it was self-defeating. Peace was a relative thing...something short-lived. That didn’t, of course, change the fact that he _wanted_ peace; that he had always wanted peace even if he hadn’t really known that he was the problem that was keeping peace from happening in the first place. He was desperately aware of the consequences of violence...of mindless violence. And while they weren’t the ones who had started this particular incident, there was no denying that they would be the ones to end it. Because Deepground had a lot to fight for...but they hadn’t been fighting _them_. And _them_ were the remnants of something monstrous...of the deep and dark...of hidden secrets and black fallacies. They were dirty fighters...the lot of them, but they were not men born from the dregs of personified apocalypse...and they would fall before them because that is what had to be done.

No matter the cost.

“Something of Hojo’s” Angeal replied, squaring himself up beside his friend. “Don’t like to negotiate.” 

Genesis smiled. 

“ _Everyone_ negotiates” was the sardonic remark. “They’re negotiating now...with their blades...with their firearms. They’re telling us what they want.” A fiery brow winged upwards. “So let’s _give_ it to them.”

“I don’t like this!” Angeal shouted at a retreating back, flinched slightly when Rapier swung in a lethal circle and took out a massive circumference of the opposing force. Hopping down from his perch, the dark-haired man followed in behind...marked the older man’s rear and kept the throng from falling in behind him. “It’s...a regression.” 

“You don’t have to like it” was the snapped response. “But it’s what’s happening, so let’s focus, and not get too fucking deep into the morality of it, alright?” 

He knew it was a crutch.

Morality...that is. But he also knew that Genesis’ viciousness, his pride...was just as much of a tripwire. They could dance around it day in and day out, but they both knew that this was what the redhead wanted; an excuse. An excuse to let his anger and rage out on something that would fight back for all that it was worth. There was a roar...one that was almost inhumane as a giant of a man was felled beneath the scarlet ruthlessness of his childhood friend’s weapon. Carnage. That’s all it was. In earlier days, he’d have likened it to Sephiroth, but it was anything but. This was grief personified, and it told him that they had _so much further_ to go before they found any sort of healing. And it was a setback...a large setback. They weren’t any closer to finding Sephiroth but they were still killing people. The despair that set in with this acknowledgement was hard to swallow...all of it was hard to swallow. 

He couldn’t bank on honor anymore. 

There was an explosion...a cacophony of pained howls and the Firaga set loose upon the enemy masses tore through them like the spirit of ire personified. His men had fallen back...aware that they had no ability to keep up with them...that Genesis’ ability to hold them was far greater than anything they could put forth. Heat seared Angeal’s cheeks...threatened to singe his eyelashes before he threw up an old, dusty Shield he kept on his person for nostalgia’s sake. Something tried to grasp him from behind and he threw his blade to his fore thoughtlessly...didn’t even glance backward to see what he’d hit...there was no point. The foyer of HQ was littered with glass...with corpses and half-dead, faceless individuals he would never know. It was nostalgic in a way that was painful. Only this time, _this time_ , he couldn’t acknowledge the greater good. And it didn’t matter that they wouldn’t surrender...it was just death...death, and more death. 

Genesis obviously had no qualms with ignoring morality. 

As the flames from the first Firaga died out like twisting...luminescent phantoms...another took its place...roared to life and blazed abroad...decimated the ranks of those who would oppose them. All the while, Angeal’s childhood friend’s visage was that of a cold, professional focus. He imagined that his was much the same...even if it felt like he was dying a slow death via recollection. You couldn’t sugarcoat mortality...he’d had to learn that the hard way. Whatever Hojo had been planning, when left bereft, these individuals had built a world for themselves beneath the city. They were amassed, hostile, and relentless but they were clearly protecting one another. He understood that on a subliminal level that made him nauseous...because this was _always_ how things ended ...how they began. There was no rectifying it now, of course, the blow had been dealt, and now they had to mete it out. 

A cardinal cataclysm. 

If Genesis was aware of the comparison, he’d likely have preened, but Angeal kept it entirely to himself because it was not a compliment. Despite more than a decade off the field, the redhead was still a killing machine. It was hard to believe-even as he did the same-that the individual before him was over forty years old. It made him sick, because it meant that Shinra could have used them _as long as they damn well wanted to_. His arms were sore, but it wasn’t a soreness due to any sort of agedness, just lack of practice. Their lethal exchange with the rival advance was something choreographed, as easy as breathing. They were skilled, but they dropped like flies because they’d dealt with things like this in Wutai. Neither of them were immortal, but they weren’t driving hard through a narrow entrypoint; they had the advantage of a large floor space and an overwhelming amount of firepower from Genesis. Shinra hadn’t lauded the older man merely for his skill with the sword; he was a hell of a mage. 

And Wutai had the advantage of fighting on their own turf. 

They had trained in HQ, so the layout was familiar to them. As a flaming, screaming phantom soared by him, Angeal flicked his weapon perfunctorily-just an inch shy of the jugular before jabbing inwards-and the ungodly howling ceased. The room was a flickering tableau of orchestrated massacre...unearthly and unseemly. A part of him...an _ugly_ part of him, insisted that this was proper. That this was his job, but it wasn’t...not anymore. An inverted...almost vortexual sound made itself apparent...like a low-frequency sonic boom and he watched as Genesis leapt away at the last moment; twisted in a kind of evasive circumvolution as the space he’d just evacuated twisted and warped; as bones shattered and the Graviga worked its lethal magic. Maroon soaked the floor and it was something wrought in a precise but lackadaisical violence...a symphony of the macabre and Angeal focused elsewhere.

He’d come prepared.

_How_ Genesis had come prepared, he didn’t want to know. He could only assume the redhead had kept such...ornaments for situations such as this. And it would save them. Really, it would be the _only_ thing that would save them...but the causality of it left him with a hollow, empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. He would have to come home to Willow and explain to her what had happened. She would want to walk him through it, he was sure of it...and he didn’t know if he could stand it at the given moment. Genesis would have to go home to Saoirse and act the part of the father, have to put on the face. He didn’t know how they did it. A body slammed into him and he reacted without thinking...brought his sword up and through...blinked as he was chest to chest with he-who-was-nameless but was looking at him...looking at him as blood spilled over his lips...as he choked on his own bodily fluids. 

A fugue. 

It felt like that...like a distinct, tyrannical moment out of space and time...like the cosmos stopped whirling and all he could see was his opponent...all he could hear was his labored...dying breath. Angeal could hear his heartbeat-his own heartbeat-slamming in his ears, could suddenly feel everything with every nerve in his body. The sounds of the battle were faint...the flashes of fire distant...like weak candles flickering in a static wind. He was separate from it...staring at nothing...nothing but brown, defiant eyes and red-slathered, sneering teeth as hot...copper-smelling eupnia washed over his visage. It made him want to scream, but he didn’t think anyone would hear him...didn’t think anyone could _see_ him and his sword hilt was wet and hot. 

_”-Geal!”_

He blinked...blinked again-couldn’t shake the sense of distance-he took a great, gasping breath. The body before him was yanked to the side and suddenly there were hands on his shoulders. They grasped him, shook him and he was looking into eyes as sapphire as his own...wide, urgent, and _angry_. Slowly, he came back to reality. It lurched forth...like a wind-up video camera; in flashes...in vague movements and there was blood on his face-

“Angeal!”

Angeal jerked and it was a full-body thing; came to and nearly threw Genesis off as reality slammed into him like a freight train. Around them, the battle was petering out, but there were still more coming...though they came slowly now...with great caution. They’d have to sweep the lower levels, he acknowledged...have to go through the whole, abominable maze of it to make sure there were no stragglers, no hidden monstrosities. Another shake, and his ire rose to the surface.

“I’m fine” he snapped.

“Like hell you are” Genesis snarled. “Get your shit together Angeal, we’re not done yet.” 

And they weren’t.

They weren’t...and they weren’t. It felt endless...felt like a great, blue tide washing forth...soaring upwards and into them. On and on and even when the surge of it became scattered it was still overwhelming, still far more than he’d ever anticipated. _How_ Hojo had accomplished something so vast was beyond him...he didn’t even care to contemplate it. Angeal didn’t have the fortitude, or the energy. The men were tired, they were all tired and when a dark, cloud-like shape boiled out of the depths of what might as well have been a road to the Abyss, he nearly gave way...nearly fell before it all. He didn’t know who he was...only that he fell like the rest of them...eventually. Like Rosso...like the giant of a man...like the girl with the orange twin sabers...he fell. He fell and the rest fell...and then there was silence…

...A ringing...finite silence. 

It seemed almost too much to ask...to wish that it was over ...but for the most part, it was. Half-staggering in the center of the room, struggling to keep his eyes open...Angeal relinquished his sword and it fell to the ground with a clatter. One of the men-an old member of his unit, he acknowledged-stepped forward to aid him, but he waved him away. Genesis was ramrod straight...his eyes on the entrance to Deepground...but every so often his eyes would flicker to the girl...the one with the sabers...almost as if they were hopeful. Angeal wanted to tell him that she was dead...that she couldn’t have survived the shot that passed from one temple to the other...but he didn’t have the heart or the energy. The minutes ticked by...five...ten...thirty...forty...and the redhead gestured perfunctorily; lifted his hand-fanlike-and then closed his fingers into a tight fist, making a circular motion as he did so. 

Disengagement. 

The sound of it...anyway. All around them, the men stood down...those that knew what the gesture meant anyway, and the others who didn’t followed suit. There was a groan from the left...followed by a swift, ringing gunshot and Angeal closed his eyes to drown out the noise. 

“I want all of you to get cleaned up and go home.” 

His childhood friend’s voice was a ringing authority in the pin-drop silence. After a moment, he appeared to amend his statement. 

“All of you in the general patrol force. I need the rest of you, the vets, to arrange a patrol and someone to report to Lazard, he’ll want a status update. Tell him I’ll be up in a minute.” When no one moved, he narrowed his eyes. “I know I’m not your Commander anymore, and that I’ve never Commanded some of you, but that’s a fucking order.”

They dispersed.

Slowly, granted...but they dispersed. Gathering himself, Angeal managed to ask one of his old platoon members to show his fellow officers where the showers were before walking backwards so he could rest against a wall. The receptionist’s area was ruined...unsalvageable, really. It would all need to be replaced. They’d need city workers in to remove the bodies...they’d need to _identify_ bodies so they could send letters and caskets to families. Paperwork. The noise that left his lips was pained. Quiet, but agonized and he sensed that Genesis was looking at him without having to glance his way. _Paperwork_. The idea was nearly enough to drive him into hysterics. Because he was _done_ , he’d been done. Enough was enough and-

“-Hey.” 

It took him a moment to refocus, to acknowledge that there was someone speaking to him. When he did, Angeal noted that Genesis was a wreck. He was covered in grime...his shirt was drenched in blood, and some part of him wanted to hysterically demand where his uniform was. It was irrational, but nothing about this was rational. A hand on his bicep-sudden, abrupt-and he nearly jumped out of his skin. The redhead before him made what he supposed was meant to be a soothing sound, but didn’t really help anything at all. 

“Talk to me” was the urgent plea. “Angeal, you gotta talk to me.” 

It seemed such an impossible request...initially. Seemed something far away...fantastic and ridiculous...but he managed it. 

“Paperwork” he blurted. “All the _paperwork_.” 

For a moment, it seemed like Genesis might laugh. And he really, truly would have punched him if he’d laughed, but there was a hysterical, almost unhinged look in those blue eyes that he didn’t like, and Genesis didn’t laugh, he merely rubbed a hand over his face and for a moment his expression contorted...became something pained and grimacing. 

“This isn’t SOLDIER” was the even response. “There is no fucking paperwork. Somebody else is going to do it. I’ll report to Lazard, but that’s all I’m doing. Get cleaned up and go home.” A pause. “Go to Gillian’s, Angeal. Just go.” 

It didn’t occur to him to question it...he was so desperate to get out of there that when he moved to leave and the older man let him...he didn’t think twice. Angeal didn’t see the way the redhead’s expression morphed into that of agony. He didn’t see...could only think of what was ahead as he weaved his way through countless… _countless_ corpses...that maybe he should stop and take someone with him. And he thanked Gaia for enhanced hearing, because it was the only thing that gave him pause...the only thing that made him turn back around and go get that someone. Because Genesis was strong...sometimes he was _so strong_ he appeared vicious, when that viciousness was a shield for a terrible, heart-wrenching sensitivity to that which was around him. In later days, he would reflect that there was one thing that made him grateful to SOLDIER that horrible, awful day.

And it was the fact that when the doors to HQ closed behind him, he was still able to hear Genesis become violently, uncontrollably sick.


	9. Chapter 9

It took two weeks to process everything. 

Two long, tedious, _traumatic_ weeks until the Deepground debacle was over and done with. Gazing out of one of HQ’s floor-to-ceiling windows, Genesis still couldn’t shake the feeling of terrible unrest in his physicality. It was a pervasive, niggling sensation that-once activated by combat-wouldn’t go away. He was accustomed to it, of course. Granted, it hadn’t happened in a very, very long time, but it was something that SOLDIERs suffered often. Battle made you restless, made you resent normalcy and redefine it as mundanity. The former Commander had long ago learned to push such feelings aside; to process them and send them off into the psychical beyond. It was no good to dwell on them. Even during his time enlisted, it didn’t do him any good because it meant that he was always itching for his next high until the eve of battle fell. The stagnance between the bloodshed became a yawning, warped void of dissatisfaction. Such thoughts leaned too far into the psychopathic for his liking, even if he’d been trained to acknowledge that they were normal. 

They’d lost forty six. 

Grimacing, the redhead supposed that he couldn’t call them _men_ anymore, because it was a generalizable, military-based terminology that no longer existed. _’Personelle’_ was slightly better, but still felt official and stiff-collar in a way that made him distinctly uncomfortable. He didn’t miss SOLDIER. It was an entirely different thing to miss the categorization of an organization rather than its agenda. Sometimes he missed the order...and that was it. Genesis felt very Sephiroth-y when he missed the order so he tried not to do it a lot, but it was still a very present sensation at times. And it was a bitch to settle down...he wasn’t ignoring that. He would be very hardily stupid if he ignored that, but he _wanted_ to. He envied the average person’s ability to shove away boredom by watching a TV show or going to the movies. Sometimes he was absolutely green with it, and he knew that was irrational as well, but it didn’t change the fact that he wanted to be able to do that. 

It was hard, however, to adhere to the mundane when you had to find a place to bury hundreds of corpses.

They’d settled, eventually, with a plot of land between Kalm and Midgar. Realistically, it was the only large enough space available to them that wouldn’t impede vehicular traffic or confuse the hell out of people. It was still in the finalization process because they had to fight with the Agricultural and Environmental Departments to do it. That specific focal of topography was rather ferociously designated as protected land. It had taken years for any sort of ecological growth to return to any place near Midgar, and digging up that ecological growth to bury lots of dead people made lots of living people-biologists, specifically-very angry. Aerith had a seat on the council, which made things a little bit easier. ‘Easier’ of course in a way that eating rice with a toothpick made it easier than just shoving your face into the bowl. Ridiculous, but still a little bit less messy. Genesis, Angeal, and Lazard sat through six successive eight hour meetings that laid out exactly how they planned to stash their morbid cargo. Because, as it turned out, you had to worry about morbid cargo being surfaced by erosion. And erosion didn’t even equate to chronology; sometimes it just equated to a hefty rainstorm. 

Cremation was not an option.

Maybe before, when they had giant reactors that would simply acidify massive quantities of flesh, it would have been a considerable facet; and that didn’t count as cremation anyway. Midgar as it was now, however, only had five morticians and they were all fairly sure if they approached them with the idea of turning a thousand or so bodies into ash they would retire promptly and without fanfare. And so they had to come up with a sublevel concept for a massive grave; complete with a drainage system, an ecologically friendly foundation and structure, a monitoring system, and a nice up-top marking system that identified each individual person buried there as _‘LFS 1-1456’_. Because humanity and ethicality dictated that they call them something other than _’blue pesky motherfuckers in great numbers now deceased’._. Snorting in a half-hearted, self-deprecating sort of way, Genesis looked down at his coffee cup. 

He knew they were SOLDIERS.

 _He knew_ , but if he didn’t treat the situation with some form of levity he was going to go absolutely nuts. Genesis was not an idiot, nor did he have a total disregard for human life. He recognized that each of the individuals the labs processed for biopsy had some type of microchip in them. They were synaptic net drives...apparently; hooked up to what he could only assume was a type of supercomputer in the bowels of Deepground. He imagined that it was the only reason they’d not noticed them for so long...living just below them. Of course you weren’t going to notice a massive gathering of enemy forces that were mind-controlled into stealth and total silence. The fact that they were, essentially, slaves was not something he had overlooked. The former First also acknowledged, however, that his professionalism played some part in the acceptance of it all. He didn’t let it torture him because he couldn’t. 

Processing this was no different from processing all the other battles they’d fought against people who thought they were doing the right thing...or when _he_ thought he was doing the right thing. As a SOLDIER, he had to accept that...had to look at it roughly, as a man, because it was that or descend into despair again, and he’d had enough of despair. He had people-friends and family-who supported him, and who he needed to support. Sometimes he did such a Gaia-awful job of being sane and collected that he wondered why anyone bothered to stick around, but it didn’t change the reality of the situation. And, sure; maybe in earlier years he’d have thrown a tantrum about it. Maybe he’d have had some sort of massive, psychotic break and binged himself into a deep well of fornication, inebriation and overall property destruction but he’d have rather hung himself than done that when he had a daughter who looked up to him. If he couldn’t learn from how he had treated people in the past, he had no idea why he was bothering to stay alive. 

Not that he’d done a great job of staying alive to begin with. 

Closing his eyes, Genesis exhaled and leaned his forehead against the cool glass surface of the windows before him. He was always angry. _Angry_ seemed like a tame word when he compared it to what he was feeling, but articulation often escaped him when he was overwrought. Maybe enough was enough. Repressing a bitter chuckle, the redhead clutched the handle of his coffee cup and attempted to reign in his thoughts. It wasn’t as easy as that...he knew. It wasn’t enough to _say_ ‘enough’, and just walk away from all the self-destruction he’d sown over the years. He wasn’t going to waltz out of this a new man...or whatever you wanted to call it. It wasn’t just about correcting himself like he could piss off and don a new metaphorical suit of good intent. He had never believed in the concept of metamorphosis, but he didn’t believe in the concept of _’a mudpuppy never changes its spots’_ either. Doing his best with what he was given was exorbitantly difficult, but it was all he could do. 

Angeal didn’t deal with this sort of thing well.

At the risk of sounding completely insensitive, Genesis was never surprised. His childhood friend had worked hard to get to where he was; was motivated by sheer will alone sometimes and the amount of effort it took for the dark-haired former First to recover was something that he did not fail to admire. Angeal had always been a hard worker; always steadfast, always honest and always positive. He envied that too...that positivism. Genesis was not someone who looked at silver linings. If he were feeling particularly morbid, he might say that he didn’t believe in them at all. And, sure, he could joke about things, but it didn’t change the fact that he was chronically disposed to pessimism. There were times when he wondered why the younger man bothered getting to know him at all. And _then_ there were times-when he was feeling particularly pissy-that he wondered if Gillian’s son had only bothered to be friends with him because he felt sorry for him. It was-after all-rather hard to walk away from someone whose life had consisted of extremely unhealthy relationships. 

Now, of course, it was different.

He heard from Angeal very rarely, sometimes not at all, and he understood it, but he also resented it. After all, he had _been there_ , and it wasn’t like _Willow_ had been there...but Angeal wanted to spend his time being comforted by his fucking girlfriend. What-he had wondered snarkily-was so much more comforting about _her_?! The answer, of course, was quite obvious because Genesis was about as comforting as a rose bush. Meaning he looked pretty great but when it came to leaning on him, things became pointy and uncomfortable very quickly. That didn’t, of course, mean that some part of him that was accustomed to his friend talking to him was at peace with the concept. Willow was good for Angeal...but there was once a time when he and Angeal had been enough for each other. Platonically, of course...decades ago. Sometimes he missed those times, but he acknowledged that wishing for them was fantastical and ridiculous. There were also times he wished that he’d never kissed Sephiroth in the Sleeping Forest; wished that he’d let the man just up and horny himself all over the forest; but of course there was nothing he could do about that either. 

Talking to Saoirse was difficult. 

Difficult in the sense that he had to explain to her...late, _late_ at night come home from the battle with Deepground toting his blood soaked leathers...he had to explain to her that war wasn’t something that you could always avoid. Genesis also had to explain to Saorise that because of his history with war, there was some expectation on his shoulders to protect the populace. She didn’t like it; of course she didn’t. What child wanted their parent to take up arms and possibly die to defend them and those around them? None that he’d ever heard of. And it didn’t matter how much he explained about his past...it was still that; _the past_. There was absolutely no reason, in his daughter’s eyes, that he should have to relive that...that _she_ should have to watch him relive that. There were still things they had to do to ensure that Deepground was gone...and she was so against him involving himself that he’d relented a bit...asked Lazard to send down some men he trusted rather than do it personally. The sweep was clean...for the most part. But he knew that things like this were never so easy, and so he offered her no reassurances of things he couldn’t guarantee. Instead, he took her out to lunch as soon as he was able, and they talked of things unrelated...because it was necessary.

“Hey.” 

Genesis very nearly dropped his coffee. 

Reflecting back on the moment, the redhead grudgingly admitted that he only ever seemed prone to dropping things in HQ. This was-most likely-due to a preformulated assumption that HQ was the last place where someone would have the balls to sneak up on him. HQ was, of course, not the same as it used to be, so his ignorance was rather to his own detriment considering he’d already gotten snuck up on by Valentine. This was, of course, not Sephiroth’s possible-but-more-than-likely-verified father. It was Aerith and Angeal, the former of which was looking tired and the latter who was looking like he wanted to be somewhere else. For a moment, Genesis felt a twinge of sympathy, because it wasn’t _him_ that Lazard had asked to sit in on a seven hour...horrifically early-commencing committee regarding the finalization of the burial plot. He’d come up later, around 0800, for moral support, but it didn’t change the fact that the former Director hadn’t asked him to be there. Behind the two, the remainder of the members of the meeting were slowly filing out, looking equally as miserable and harangued. 

They’d painted it white. 

This part of headquarters, anyway...opposite to the dark, formidable greyish hue that he was so accustomed to broken up by the occasional, blinding fluorescent. You couldn’t subtract the technological, clean-cut atmosphere of it; but at least it felt more like the professional buildings you saw throughout the rest of Midgar than a somber, tall, and secret-infested dungeon. Somebody had bothered with plants, he didn’t know who, but it wasn’t intolerable. Administration ran dangerously close to Debriefing-if he could even call Debriefing _’Debriefing’_ anymore-and this was fairly near to Deck 49, whose floor was sunken and reachable by a series of four wide steps. Upon reaching the bottom, one would come in contact with a strange, vaguely octagonal bench, and then a set of wide windows. It was here that Genesis was watching his friend and sister approach; before the view, with the rest of the rabble heading to the long hallway opposite them and out of sight. Narrowing his eyes at the bench, the redhead acknowledged that someone else had deigned to paint it white and place a large potted begonia atop it. It was so absurd-as a former SOLDIER-to see begonias where he used to eat lunch between training exercises that he resolutely ignored it most of the time.

Angeal was looking at him apprehensively. 

Blowing a wayward strand of hair from his face, Genesis kept his expression neutral as he set his coffee mug down on the offending table and braced his palms on the surface, learning forward as he did so. He was familiar with the expression; it was one of a kind of taut consternation...anticipatory yet somehow resigned. Somewhat grumpily, the older man wondered when he’d gotten so horrible that his best friend now approached their conversations with clenched teeth and low expectations. Aerith-thankfully-did not have the same bearing, and he was glad she didn’t because it was the one thing that kept him from saying something snarky, obnoxious, and extremely off-putting. Angeal was also likely aware of the fact that he hadn’t bothered to talk to Genesis since the whole ‘grave debacle’, and was waiting for him to spontaneously combust.

 _’Good!’_ some childish, neglected, and irrational part of him shrieked before he strangled it. 

Instead, he did his best to keep his facial features pleasantly unattached before opening his mouth.

“How’d it go?”

“Better” Aerith sighed explosively, sliding onto the bench and pushing the begonia off to the side with a tad more force than was typical of her. “Most of the Environmental branch has settled down.” She smiled, but it was wan. “Whatever Architectural cooked up to make the structure more green won their favor. Even if it took a few weeks to do it.” His sister paused and then scrutinized him seriously. “You weren’t invited to the meeting” she said curiously. “And I know you don’t ship out, what are you doing here?” 

“I want this done and over with as much as you do” Genesis muttered, echoing his sister’s movement on the opposite side of the bench. “Thought I’d drop by. Saorise slept over at a friend’s, she won’t be home until late afternoon I reckon.” He paused. “How’s it going ‘Geal?” the former Commander asked loudly as the man in question checked his phone for the upteenth time. 

“Good” was the blunt statement as his friend texted furiously for a moment. “Doesn’t look like they’ll need the Force on this one.” 

“There might be some picketing” Aerith pointed out, craning her neck to look upwards at the officer next to her. “That one biologist...Remming, he was really steaming. I wouldn’t be surprised if he started something.” 

“I’ll ask if we can station a few cruisers close by on the date” was the weary reply. “But I don’t want to make a spectacle of it if the Chief says it isn’t necessary. Just because this event required me to play the SOLDIER doesn’t mean that I’m going to pull prior rank and make a militia stand around.” 

“I could do that” Genesis muttered, only half-joking.

A dark, hairy brow was raised in his direction.

“You’re not cute” Aerith sniffed before his childhood friend could say anything. 

“I’ve got to go” Angeal said abruptly. “I promised Willow I’d meet her for lunch, and I want to stop at home beforehand.” He shot an apologetic glance at the two of them. “Sorry, but with all this...I haven’t had any time to spend with her outside of talking through this.” His eyes shifted to Genesis, and the contriteness in his expression was much stronger. “I know I haven’t been around…” 

“Just go” Genesis groaned, waving a hand. “S’not like Aerith’s horrible company, give her some credit.” 

“Yeah” Aerith giggled, trying and failing to look offended as she laughed. “Cut me some slack, Angeal, would you?” 

For a moment, the redhead’s former comrade looked taken aback. To his credit, he recovered swiftly, but the shock in his expression didn’t hurt any less. The atmosphere became, quite abruptly, slightly awkward. Ducking his head, Genesis worried a loose grain on the tabletop. 

“Just like that?” Angeal asked quietly. “No sarcasm? No jibes regarding how _we_ haven’t talked through it? No-”

“-Angeal!” Genesis snapped, curling his hands into fists on the tabletop. As he did so, that familiar resignation crossed the dark-haired man’s visage. Only this time, it didn’t feel like disappointment...it felt like...like it was _anticipated_ , and therefore relieving. Taking a deep breath and swallowing down his hurt, the scarlet-haired ex-First blinked rapidly before continuing. “Sometimes” he said tightly. “Sometimes my life isn’t always a circus.” When Angeal opened his mouth-presumably to apologize-he held up a hand. “And _sometimes_ ” he continued. “I’m not always the fucking clown.” He laughed, bitterly, when his childhood friend looked contrite. “Don’t” he muttered. “Don’t, ‘Geal, okay? I’m saying it’s alright, so let’s just...let’s just not push that envelope...not right now. I don’t want to step into the ring today, just so you know I’ve still got some fight in me. Right now, I want you to have a good time with Willow, so go and do that, alright?”

“That’s all it takes?” was the the ominously quiet response. “Some _bloodshed_ , and suddenly you’re not at everyone and anyone’s throat-?!”

“-Fuck _off_ Angeal!” Genesis barked, half-standing before forcing himself to sit. “Just leave, alright? I’m trying to be _nice_ , and you’re not letting me, so just _fuck off!_ ” 

He took his time acceding. 

Angeal, that is...he took his time. Blue eyes raked his visage...as if somehow they could dredge the answers from his expression without communicating at all. Genesis wanted to tell him that if he tried, the reality of it would be misconstrued, but there was too much of a possibility for debate there...and so he let it be. Aerith was silent, and he was, for once, grateful for her lack of intervention. This was, ultimately, between the two of them. He was sorry that she had to witness it, but there was no other way he was going to get it across. 

“I’ll text you” Angeal said finally, already halfway to the stairs. “Later.” 

“Right” Genesis replied hastily, his eyes sliding away in a desperate attempt to avoid further conversation. 

He watched the begonias sway in the light breeze from the air conditioner with a distinct feeling of detachment. There was the sound of receding footsteps; up the stairs and then over the linoleum of the hallway...fading gradually before taking a sharp right to the elevator. Only when he heard the lift doors close did he allow himself to exhale...slumping slightly in his seat. Fingers on his fisted hand gave him pause, and he looked up to see Aerith leaning towards him, her expression genuine and open. 

“He shouldn’t have-” 

“-He’s right” the redhead cut in quietly. When his sister looked like she might protest, he shook his head. “Aerith, I’ve been...an _asshole_. I’m always an asshole, and there’s not a lot I can do to change that. But there’s absolutely no reason that you, or ‘Geal, or anyone else should have to...expect that.” 

Another small, dainty hand joined the one already atop his...squeezing as it did so.

“Genesis” Aerith said quietly, tactfully dodging his comment. “ _Are_ you okay?”

Looking at her from across the table, the aforementioned man acknowledged that it was a difficult question to answer. ‘Okay’ was a relative term….highly adjustable, really. He could say it and not mean it, had certainly said it and not meant it before. It was more complicated than that, of course...but it still bore consideration. He wanted to be able to assure her...as her older brother...he really did. At the same time, Genesis was aware that doing so would make it a lie. Swallowing, he bowed his head and closed his eyes. 

“I’m trying” he said hoarsely. “I really am.” 

There was silence, and he assumed she was trying to collect her thoughts. 

“We don’t really talk” she said bitterly, and he looked at her in surprise. Smiling crookedly, Aerith tilted her head. “We don’t” she said gently. “Not like most siblings do.” 

Genesis couldn’t help the incredulous, slightly self-deprecating laugh that spilled over his lips.

“We’re not exactly _’most siblings’_ ” he chuckled dryly. 

“No” was the amused statement. “We aren’t. But...maybe we should...more.” 

“We’re around each other a lot,” the redhead replied, tossing his hair back. “It’s not like we need to catch up or anything.” 

“Yeah, but there’s other things to talk about” Aerith sighed, pulling her hands away and sitting up. “Like Mom.” 

“ _Your_ Mom” Genesis corrected carefully. “I never knew her.” 

Picking at a loose thread on her sleeve, his sister smiled, but it was sad. 

“She’s your Mom too” was the quiet response. “And she loved you a lot...missed you...all the time.” Bright eyes grew melancholy for a moment. “I _know_ she loved you. She cried about you...when she thought I couldn’t see. I don’t know what Gast did about that...I can’t remember. When we tried to escape-” Here, Aerith’s voice became halting, became hitched and tight with grief. “-When we tried to leave, she talked about coming to get you.” A watery laugh. “ _’We’re going to get your brother, Aerith’_ , that’s what she said to me. She was so excited. I think maybe, it wasn’t just me that drove her to try to escape...it was you...she wanted you _so bad_ she was willing to move mountains to get to you.” Those eyes...so similar to his own yet not, filled with tears. “Willing to die to keep me safe.” Genesis had leaned forward to say something, anything really, but she was already wiping her eyes...clearly trying to put up a brave front. “ “I...don’t remember much about her. Sometimes...it feels like every day I forget more.” Aerith looked at him sadly. “It’s scary” she whispered. “To feel like you’ll forget someone you loved so much...just because you’re outliving them, you know?” 

It took him several minutes before he felt he was together enough to reply to her. When he spoke, it was hoarse with sadness and despair.

“Yeah” Genesis replied. “I do.” Taking her hand this time...he shook it gently between his. “I _really_ do.” Looking down at their gathered palms, he closed his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Aerith” he muttered. “I overlook you, a lot.” 

“You don’t” was the exasperated reply, tinged with fondness. Aerith flicked his ring finger playfully before patting his knuckles. “Genesis, you have a daughter. A beautiful, well behaved daughter who loves you to smithereens.” When the redhead looked at her, she smiled again, but this time it wasn’t so sad. “ _I_ didn’t raise her to make her into the young woman she is today, you did. That’s all you, so give yourself some credit there. You had a lot to deal with all at once, and I had, and have, Zack. I had Gillian to talk to, and now I have Willow too. I’m not alone, but you were alone...more alone than any of us...even if we were right there.” Genesis’ sister bopped his chin when he jutted it out slightly, but her expression had sobered. “Sometimes, I worry that you’re still all alone.” Aerith’s hand traveled upward to tap his forehead. “In there.” Again, she drew back. “I’m sorry, for bringing up Sephiroth again...after so long. But I couldn’t keep that...I couldn’t keep that secret.” 

“I wouldn’t expect you to” Genesis replied, ignoring the painful twinge at the mention of his partner. A silence fell between them again, but this time it was slightly stilted. “Have you…” he cleared his throat and gritted his teeth. “...Found anything?”

Exhaling...Aerith shook her head. 

“Nothing that makes sense” she whispered. “There was something...something far North.” 

“It-” again, the redhead paused before plowing forward. “-It _happened_ far North” he pointed out. 

“Not this far” was the bitter return. “Not in the Sleeping Forest.” 

Genesis felt as if someone had abruptly punched him in the gut. 

It was such a powerful, disbelieving emotion that he swayed slightly on the bench before righting himself. There was a dull ringing in his ears, and he was vaguely aware that his sister was looking at him with alarm, but he held up his hand to beg for her patience even as his mind whirled frantically. 

“The _Sleeping Forest?!_ ” he demanded, breathless. 

“Yes…” Aerith said slowly. “But...it’s...hard to explain. It feels static and muted...it’s not a physical presence. It’s connected to the Lifestream but it’s not...it’s…”

“-It’s caught between” Genesis said harshly, and her eyes widened in surprise. “Somewhere black, soundless, and necrotic. It’s trapped and something stands before it, something monstrous...something _wrong_.” 

“How do you know that?!” Aerith demanded, sounding suddenly upset. “You said you don’t talk to the Planet!” 

“I don’t” the former Commander replied through clenched teeth. “But Sephiroth and I had a mission there...long ago. We never really resolved it...figured it was an inside job and- _oh Gaia_.” Unable to go on, he dropped his head into his hands and took a deep, desperate breath. “Fuck, Aerith, you could have said anything but that, and I’d have been able to walk away. Right now...I was _ready_.” Still, she was silent, and he took that time to pull himself together as best he could. “Tell me” he said flatly;

“Tell me _everything._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possibly not-so-fun-fact: 'A mudpuppy never changes its spots' is an alteration of 'a leopard never changes its spots. But the mudpuppy is in FFXIV, and I could not think of any spotty monsters in FFVII.   
> -We may get another Genesis chapter after this. I was, originally, intending to introduce a vital OC to this installment that I've been chewing my figurative nails to bring in. It didn't, however, fit in with where Genesis and Aerith took things because, apparently, I have no control over the characters. And they need to introduce themselves to Genesis for it to work so I may break with the flip flopping POV in order to sate my rabid need but we'll see.


	10. Chapter 10

"We'll need to confiscate the computer."

Looking upwards and squinting his eyes against the glare of half a dozen headlamps, Genesis scowled. The map in his hands was rudimentary at best... unreadable at worst. He was standing in a large, open-floor space; industrial in nature with some technological facets. A week beforehand, the area had been lit up, floor to ceiling, but most of Deepground's facilities had been dismantled and shut down. This was, ultimately, to his satisfaction...the sooner this was buried, the sooner he could focus on more pressing matters. Being sublevel was less than ideal; it reminded him...a little bit, of the labs. Not in the sense that it would have reminded Sephiroth, but in that habitual, knee-jerk sense that all SOLDIERs possessed from years receiving mako injections in dimly lit, on the side of too-cold rooms. 

There were questions.

Of course there were questions. The whole thing was a massive textbook of questions, but the answers were dead and buried...or missing. Shifting his flashlight from his right hand to his left, the redhead returned his gaze to the map before writing it off as a lost cause. He knew his way around well enough at this point...and he didn’t really feel the need to familiarize himself with the place. Management had plans to gut it. Take out the wiring and salvage whatever parts could be found...clear out what could be recycled and fill the whole damn thing up with concrete or dirt. Aerith insisted that it ought to be something _’ecologically friendly’_ ; so it was probably going to be dirt. He supposed that there was some element of dark nostalgia there...because people had lived there...if you could call being a brainwashed militant something _’alive’_ at all. He didn’t really know. 

They’d wanted him. 

Nodding at the former field sergeant who had spoken, Genesis stepped away from the console he’d been standing next to and aimed his torch back at the dark...bereft hallway behind him. Someone coughed; the sound agonizingly loud in the barren...echoing space, but he ignored it. They’d had enough time to figure out that the whole thing was anti-Shinra. He could get behind that, but he couldn’t get behind Hojo leading the project. His degradation...the events of his degradation were a marked path in the old files...like they’d been hoping for him to go batshit and AWOL and flop into their arms like a sad, sick fish so they could bend him to their will. There was talk of ‘brotherhood’...of unification. Whatever this was...not all of them were for the regime. The Tsviets certainly weren’t...there was enough evidence to determine that they didn’t like the enslavement...but their ‘new world’ was just a shinier, prettier form of enslavement. 

He’d rather have died. 

Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Genesis shifted his shoulders and then promptly kicked over a trash can. This earned him some glares that quickly morphed into rolling eyes and mutters when he smiled at the team in question before traipsing off to check on the other group. Ducking underneath a temporarily erected scaffold, the former Commander let the overhead rung carry his momentum with one arm before dropping down to the lower landing with a satisfying **_*thud*_**. Here, Angeal was pouring over a bunch of half-destroyed knicknacks with Cloud and Zack. His childhood friend shot him a dour look before returning to his task. Snorting, the older man returned Fair’s nod before finding a crate to sit on. 

The militant persona was cute until it wasn’t anymore.

He’d learned this a long time ago, and the idea that he’d be weak enough to be swayed by a group of people who hadn’t seen half as much combat as he had was laughable. And, sure, Deepground had the advantage of mind control, but they didn’t have the advantage of brotherhood. Actual brotherhood; not brotherhood born from neurological chips and Munchausen Syndrome. If he ever said that to Angeal, he'd probably hang himself afterwards; but a cohesive, enslaved, entity had its flaws as much as anything else. There was no room for creativity or individuality. Tyranny sure; but a boring sort of tyranny. Kind of like how you could get a marlboro to go on a rampage, but you couldn't get it to rampage wearing a feather boa, scarlet lipstick and a department’s worth of high heels; no fun...no fun at all. 

"Looks good here."

Genesis grimaced and tilted his chin; sticking his jaw out and raising an eyebrow at Angeal. The man in question looked momentarily mollified before he sat down on the crate next to him with a sigh. 

"Yup" the redhead replied slowly. "Nice and dark and wet-"

"-Don't go any further than that" was the dour, interrupting groan. When the older man affected an expression of moroseness his childhood friend nudged his shoulder. "I mean it."

"You know me too well" Genesis complained. "I want a divorce."

"We'll settle the terms later then" was the good-natured reply. "You can keep all the memories I have of every poor soul you dragged into the top bunk while I was trying to sleep when we were new recruits. I'll keep the memories of all the times you drooled on my field blanket."

"There weren't that many times" the scarlet-haired man hedged. 

"Our bunk was replaced" Angeal said flatly. "Three times, and then they moved us to corner cots."

"Not the _fucking_ " Genesis scoffed, waving a hand. "The drooling."

He was fixed with a dark and hairy brow. 

"I have pictures" was the sly reply. The expression of slyness melted into contriteness. “But I’ve got to go, therapy in an hour.” Genesis suppressed the urge to say something terrible, mostly because it looked like the blue-eyed ex-First wanted to continue but wasn’t entirely sure how to go about it. They remained in semi-awkward silence for a minute while Cloud and Zack muttered to one another. “...Are we okay?”

This was said hesitantly, as if Angeal was afraid to go there at all. For a minute, the redhead felt a twinge of guilt, but he shoved it down and forced himself to look at the question neutrally. 

“I know I’m screwed up” he replied slowly. When his friend made as if to interrupt, he raised a hand. “You know it, Angeal. And _I_ know you want to fix it. Sometimes, you try so hard to fix things you end up making them worse, and I’m saying that as your friend.” Genesis sighed. “Maybe...maybe it’s time for both of us to accept that there are some things you can’t heal from...some wounds that never close.”

“It’s hard for me to accept that” Angeal said weakly. 

The older man smiled, and it was understanding. 

“Yeah, I know. And it does mean something, ‘Geal, okay? I don’t make it easier when I complain all the time...when I’m ready to tell you or anyone else to fuck off at the drop of a hat. I’m working on that, but Sephiroth...what I did, what I _had_ to do, you don’t get it. I can’t forgive myself, I can’t forgive him, and I have to live with that.”

“If it’s trauma-”

“-Of course it’s fucking trauma” the former Commander said irritably, kicking at the grating under his boots. “All of it’s trauma; you have trauma, I have trauma. I went to the therapist, it didn’t work. Which is funny, because you knocked me for talking about therapy as a kid, sometimes that still stings a little. Good for you, that the therapist helps you. Good for anyone who can get by without a therapist, but those _anypeople_ aren’t me. I know you want me to be, _I_ want to be...but I can’t, and I can’t-” he paused and closed his eyes. 

“-I can’t be your friend if I can’t do this; I can’t be anyone’s friend. I can barely take care of my kid, barely work or function or do normal… _people_ things. You have a family, Angeal. And sure, I have Aerith, but it doesn’t work like that for me. Maybe I’m broken. Maybe I’m just a bitter son of a bitch, but...do me, and you, a favor and just...live. I’m gonna be here; maybe we find something regarding Seph, maybe we won’t, but I’ll still be here. And we can work together, sure, but stop expecting me to bounce back...because when he died...when I killed him, I ripped a hole the size of the universe across the elasticity of my positivism. Sometimes I fall, sometimes I float in this aimless...dark space...but I can’t go back. I don’t know how to.”

“That hurts me” Angeal said at length, his voice hoarse. 

“I know” Genesis repeated, his voice thin. “But I can’t help you there, Angeal. I really can’t. I can’t help you if I can’t help myself.” 

The man in question’s phone buzzed and he sighed exasperatedly, fingering his badge before pulling the device out of his pocket and giving it a look that could have curdled milk. 

“I’ve got to go” he said, seeming to waver in his indecision. “But do me a favor, Genesis.” When the older man raised an eyebrow, he put a hand on his shoulder, his visage solemn. “Take care of yourself; if not mentally, physically. And if not for you, for Saoirse. She needs you, even if you think that she’d be better off without you.” 

“You’re still the kid I ran to in Banora” the redhead laughed tiredly. “I’m not ignoring that...you were always my hero, Angeal, my first hero before I got so wrapped up in the obsessive poison that was Shinra. The first person I fell in love with, I’m not some batshit insane person talking out of my ass...I’m not blind to what other people do for me. So, yeah, I’ll do that. But you do you, ‘Geal...there’s nothing wrong with you, you’re a SOLDIER. You were a Soldier before you ever got into this shithole, and don’t let me or any other sorry motherfucker tell you otherwise.”

The hug was expected. 

The tears were not.

And it wasn’t like Angeal blubbered all over him; it was rather like he got his jaw soggy when he went in for the rib-crushing, spine-shattering, brotherly embrace that knocked the wind out of Genesis’ lungs and left him wheezing over a broad shoulder. Attempting to return your perfunctory man-slap was more difficult when you were suffocating, but the redhead managed it even as he made a sound that he imagined a goldfish might make if stepped on and goldfish could make noise. Upon hearing it, the dark haired first immediately loosened his grip. 

“You’re laying the angst on heavy” Genesis complained. 

“Like you’re one to talk about angst” was the somewhat unsteady response as Angeal drew back. Nodding at Zack-who looked like he might possibly orgasm from all the camaraderie-the owner of the Buster Sword swiped his radio from one of the crates and buckled it to his belt. “Update me, if you hear anything new.” 

“Yeah” the older man snorted, glad to fall back into semi-professionalism. “I’ll let you know if the rats start a riot. Come with your gun and you might get the rodent masses to quiver before your uniformed professionalism.” 

Angeal rolled his eyes, a small smile tugging at his lips before he turned and began to make his way back to the tarp, his boots hollow-sounding on the corrugated flooring. Once his back was turned, Genesis let his smirk bleed away...relieved that he could, at least...drop the act, even if it was only for a second. Zack called him over to look at what appeared to be an old processor, and he forced himself to focus. Concentrating on the conversation he’d had wouldn’t do him any good; it was the same old song and dance...though maybe some might see it as progress. He was reluctant to write it off, but he didn’t want to get in over his head psychologically smack dab in the middle of a dismantlement project, it was just bad form. He’d promised Saoirse they would go out to dinner after he got off shift, and it was getting dangerously close to ‘late’. The redhead wanted to wrap things up before he bungled his ‘dad-daughter’ date more atrociously than he already had. 

Fate, of course, was not on his side. 

Cloud announced that he had to leave perhaps ten minutes after they figured out that the processor was useless. This meant that the signing-off procedure in terms of collected ‘contraband’ was left to Genesis and Zack, which was a hell of a lot of paperwork for two people to do considering that the processor wasn’t the only item they’d recovered. Strife had a good excuse, however; he had to check in with Administration because Lazard wanted a work through of the area. The blonde had done the majority of the reconnaissance...and he’d done a smashing job of it. Cloud was quiet, clearly high strung, and extremely OCD, but he was good at what he did. There was absolutely no sense in making him stay. 

Thirty minutes into a lovely paperwork-in-the-dark session, Zack declared that Aerith was wanting to discuss opportunities for ecological use of the Deepground facilities. This, Genesis was farily sure he could have said _’fuck you, no’_ to, but he didn’t have the heart because of Aerith and so he was left to squint at a giant pile of ridiculousness by himself while the other team went over their end of the deal across the way. Saoirse texted him soon after that to tell him that Gillian had invited her over for dinner with Vincent. This pissed him off so much that he decided he might as well resign himself to eternal darkness, and so he remained. 

Because he was not sitting across the table from Grandpa Valentine. 

Scratching out an irritable but professional version of _’hey this piece of trash motherboard was outdated five years ago’_ , the redhead made a face. And it wasn’t like Saoirse _called_ him grandpa; it was just an irrational, poorly justified hatred for a really shitty parent. He didn’t think, at this point, that he could proffer judgement regarding shitty parenting. And, sure, their situations were wildly different, but who the hell knew what they were doing with kids? Not him. Vincent didn’t even know, at the time, that Sephiroth _was_ his kid. And what was he supposed to do? Take out the entirety of the manor in a blaze of Turkish glory? Genesis was fairly sure that that wasn’t in the handbook, and that mass destruction without subtlety wasn’t exactly Intelligence-designated. He could have poisoned them slowly, but Hojo was smart enough to figure it out, and if not Hojo, Gast surely would have. That didn’t change the fact that he was angry. Really, one look at the older man was enough to make Genesis want to wring his neck, but he acknowledged that this might be transference due to his resemblance to his progeny. He couldn’t outright murder someone because they looked a lot like his dead boyfriend. 

“Coffee darling?” 

Genesis blinked. 

There was, once again, the presence of an atrociously bright headlamp that didn’t belong to him. This time, however, it was not attached to someone he knew. Narrowing his eyes to combat the glare, the redhead acknowledged that he had no idea who they were, only that they were wearing dark fatigues and a flight jacket of a similar color. Seeming to sense his discomfort, the stranger pushed his helmet up until the beam was somewhat out of direct line of sight. 

This didn’t help anything, because the only thought that crossed the redhead’s mind when his vision cleared was that the individual in question was tragically yummy. Really, that was a poor choice of words, but he was delicious-looking; from his long, buttercup-yellow hair and his golden eyes, to his high, full, but ultimately masculine cheekbones. He had a longish face, but nothing that took away from anything else. His nose was largish too, but in a way that was pleasant, with just a slight downturn that gave him an ever-cheerful, almost playful demeanor, especially considering his lips; which were on the thin side but pretty and flushed all the same. Contrary to his hair; his brows were dark and angular, but not so much that they took away from the arresting nature of his physicality. They were of the same height, though Genesis was slightly bulkier, which did wonders for his ego. 

“Did Angeal send you?” he blurted out. 

Surprisingly, the question didn’t appear to confuse his abrupt companion. Instead, he laughed, and his voice was velvety, smooth but slightly musical. Frantically, Genesis wondered why the hell he had never noticed him before. Shifting his weight from one leg to the other, a long-fingered, pale hand came up to push an errant lock of hair away from that horribly pleasing visage.

“No” was the amused response. “I got called down by the other side. Errand boy, you know, I’m just starting in the refreshment department. It means I’ve got to jog everywhere for everyone, does wonders for the glutes. I thought you could use some, working alone.” A soft _’tsk’_ that should not have sent shivers rolling down his spine like it did. “Your partners left you all alone down here, did they? Shame on them, I wouldn’t leave you alone...not with a face like that.” 

Genesis very nearly choked; because _no one_ , got down to the flirting department so hard and so fast except for him. It made him wary in a manner that took the wind straight out of his sails. 

“Who are you?” he demanded. “I haven’t seen you before.”

“Where are my manners?” was the murmured reply as the coffee was set in front of him. “My name is Thierry, Thierry Verville. I don’t bother with the whole surname debacle, so we can get right down to being on a first name basis.” The last part was said with a definitive purr and Genesis wanted to kick him just for stealing his act. “I worked in Intelligence before it all went up in smoke” a smile that was on the _wrong_ side of salacious. “In the best of ways, of course, thanks to you. Took a job in Accounting for a while and couldn’t stand it.” A sigh. “Literally. I couldn't stand at all! Trapped behind a desk, it was tragic. I applied for a job in HQ, but it took them awhile to process me, and now here I am, serving Commander Rhapsodos coffee.” Another smile, this one wider than the last. “I am, quite helplessly, at your service.” 

Well, shit. 

Genesis took a gulp of the coffee because he was screaming mad and because he didn’t have anything better to do with his hands. He was fairly sure if he left them free he’d throttle Blueberry or whatever his name was, no matter how good he looked. This was a regrettable course of action, because it was scalding hot and burned a path from his tongue to his stomach. It was only logical that his body give up the ghost and succumb to a coughing fit, to which his companion responded with great and terrible enthusiasm. Meaning that he slapped him on the back and it felt like his eyes were going to roll out of their sockets. Out of all the things that alarmed him, this was possibly the most concerning. Normal people did not have that kind of strength. Angeal could pull it off, but he was fairly sure no one else could except maybe Vincent and the dark-haired former Turk had-quite wisely-never laid a finger on him. When he’d recovered, Genesis pushed him away so hard that he stumbled slightly, but recovered in a manner that was so graceful it only made him hate him more. 

“Look” he began, his voice scratchy from the heat-related choking. “First of all, you’ve got a lot of nerve. Second of all, I’m _not_ a Commander, and I was never a Commander, I was a slave to a regime. A puppet.”

“Oh but I beg to differ” was the annoyingly pleasant response. “I’ve read about you, you see, it was part of the job description...Intelligence and all. You were good, you led your men well, fairly. Just because you were leading blind doesn’t mean you weren’t anything at all.” 

“Fairness doesn’t mean shit when you’re killing your boys for a corrupt cause” Genesis snapped, picking his pen up again. “Thanks for the coffee, but I’m not in the mood to talk. I don’t care if you owned thirty pairs of my old underwear and masturbated to it with a picture of me the tabloids took. I’m not the same man, and I’ve always hated fanservice. So get the fuck out of here.” 

“Oh” Thierry simpered, stepping closer instead of moving away. “You think I’m a _fan_ , how adorable.” When Genesis looked outraged, he smiled...and there was something distinctly twisted about it, but that disappeared behind the overall indignation. “Let’s get a few things clear” was the continuation. “I’m not one of your little, shrieking sycophants from years of yore. I’m not going to run about slobbering over your boots or your atrociously red hair, or your playboy ways; I’ve been around too long to fall over because you can bat your eyelashes, darling. But I _do_ know something that you want...something you’d kill for.”

“Yeah?” the scarlet-haired former Commander ground out through gritted teeth. “You better tell me what that is before I wipe the floor with you. I’m about ten seconds away from-”

“-What, _breaking all my bones?_ ” was the sardonic reply. Theirry’s expression was distinctly flirtatious, but also distinctly mocking. “I think I’d _like_ that. I’m all for a romp, especially if there’s blood involved, but I think you’d find it harder to do than you’re anticipating.” He began to pace, and Genesis took note of his stance with increasing alarm. He was trained. He was absolutely trained, and not as a Turk. Despite the fluidity of his movements, he was angling himself inwards, keeping his posture open but not leaving anything vital in clear view. You didn’t learn to move like that unless you were fairly high up in the ranks, ‘till you’d had a hell of a lot of field experience, and Genesis had _never_ seen him in the field. “I’ve heard, you see, of your ventures into the Sleeping Forest...and I know you’re still looking for your paramor.” 

He’d had it. 

Genesis moved to pin his adversary to the wall, to get him up against the metal plating near the crates he and Angeal had sat on; preferably by the neck. Because _how dare he_?! The pen clattered to the floor and he lunged forward, executed a perfect direct-pivot...the leather of his jacket creaking as he did so...his hand reached out to grasp...to drag...and it closed around-

-Nothing at all. 

He had to jerk back abruptly to keep from slamming into the grating himself, had to catch himself on one of the crates so he could use it for leverage in order to turn around. Thierry was exactly where he’d been before. Well, almost exactly, he was slightly to the left, and his expression was expectant. Wary now, Genesis paused and sized him up more carefully. 

“Now that I have your attention” was the insultingly-bored drawl. “You should know if you move now, Hojo will know what you’re doing. Going North at this time would be foolhardy.” 

“I’m pretty sure I can deal with a decrepit old madman” Genesis snarled. 

“Not with the leverage he has at his disposal” was the swift response. A pause, and a dark brow winged upwards. “Leverage...as it happens, that also has an access point here...in Deepground.” 

“What the _hell_ are you talking about?!” the former Commander snapped, feeling slightly hysterical. 

A smile...and this time, it was clearly sinister...but there was something soft behind it...something he disliked far more than the posturing or the flair. 

“That computer Administration wants to confiscate” Thierry said quietly, stepping forward. “I wouldn’t do that.” When Genesis opened his mouth to retort, he shook his head and pressed a finger to his lips in a mocking request for silence. “I wouldn’t do it,” he repeated. “For...you see…”

“...Sephiroth’s consciousness is in it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * my OCs are unreliable informants; and unreliable in general. It's a trend. 
> 
> If you want to see Thierry you can find him on DA.


	11. Chapter 11

“I think you’ve finally cracked.”

Angeal’s voice did the same as he said this; forcing the pitch of it low across the dim, isolated space where he and his childhood friend were standing. Aerith was a little to the left, and her face was pinched...tight. Her bearing bespoke of a terrible, vibrating sort of anxiety that only thickened the tension between the three of them. It was late at night...so late that it was past a rude hour and straight into purely offensive chronology. The booth in which the owner of the Buster Sword was sitting smelled of cheap alcohol and too many cigarettes. It was an old smell...familiar from his days a cadet but now the aroma wasn’t comforting or nostalgic. Instead, it was an ancient, bitter ache that refused to fade. If he concentrated hard enough, he could imagine the shapes of cadets he had trained sitting in the now-empty seats around them. Men who had perished in battle...ephemeral wraiths lounging on crushed velvet bumping elbows and swapping pub jokes. 

Garters and Gorgons was-during the SOLDIER era-only discrete in the sense that no self-respecting civilian set foot in it. 

It was, therefore, a regular hangout for young recruits in times that had passed. Staring at the empty, low-lit stage a few tiers below them, Angeal reflected that Genesis had stamped his presence here with a permanence that he had once admired. This was no longer, of course, the case. Gone were the redhead’s tabloid photos from behind the bar...gone was the hither-thither snapshot of him standing below blood-red curtains wearing fishnet stockings and a smear of carmine lipstick while the crowds roared their approval of his rendition of _’I’ve Gongaga for you, baby’_. The staff was ‘new’...if you could call a staff that had been working there for a decade ‘new’...but they certainly weren’t the young...upbeat and slightly sketchy management that had once run the place like a cross between a brothel, a bar, and a vaudeville act. No more was the tacky jukebox in the corner; they’d replaced it with a high-end, state of the art sound system that was currently playing what appeared to be classical music. 

Someone had wanted the old scene to disappear. 

Staring at his empty mug of coffee, Angeal sadly wondered if it was for the best. He couldn’t definitively say so, because he had fond memories of the place in its heyday. Now, of course, it was just another high dollar lounge for the private and elite...what little of elitism was left, anyway. If he looked closely...if he squinted his eyes and tilted his head, he could see the scuff marks on a table where Genesis had once danced a particularly lewd tango with a member of the Nurse Corps. If he remembered correctly...both of them had worn heels. There was the bar, of course, where he’d spent too many nights halfway to tears with mirth...laughing at whatever his fellow recruits and his childhood friend could think up next. There used to be tiki lights by the door every Thursday; when the girls came down from Medical and decided the men needed to be put in their place. Genesis used to practically fall over his feet to snatch up Apple, who forever treated him with a fond but fierce sort of tolerance wrapped up in leather garters and a riding crop. 

Good days and good memories...gone. 

Now of course, their place there was different...but it didn’t change the tight feeling in his chest...the sense of loss...of the fact that all of it, every bit of it was still hamstrung by the insipid pall of a tyrannical regime. Sephiroth had never come there...of course he hadn’t. By his memory, the General had never bothered to get into ‘the scene’ as some would call it. Angeal was fairly sure now that he hadn’t been allowed to, and he was angry at himself for being so blind to how much the younger man’s hands were tied. While they had been living under the illusion of battle-saturated glory and good nights, Shinra’s pride and joy was alone in an apartment...maybe staring out at the city lights and wondering what it was like to be free. 

Just the idea of it made him cold inside. 

There was the tinkling noise of shattered glass...a harsh bark and a drunken, watery yelp. The three of them observed as the bouncer dragged a barely-lucid customer to the door...dodged a punch that would have went wide anyway and then threw the hapless, nameless individual out onto the street. Suppressing a sigh, Angeal closed his eyes. That wouldn’t have happened either...before. If someone got too drunk and tried to start a brawl, somebody would have gone along with it. There’d have been a bar fight...nothing anyone would have held against anyone else...just good sportsmanship and alcohol and needing to let off some steam. If worse came to worse, there’d been a room in the back they used to throw people in to sober up...nobody got curbed back then...it just wasn’t done. 

_”Tempus fugit”_ Genesis said darkly...watching as the bouncer returned to his post by the door. 

“You’re displacing” Aerith said sharply, earning herself a dour look from her brother. “You _are_ ” she insisted, leaning back and pushing her hair away from her face with one hand. “We all know we’re not here to talk about how things have changed.” 

“It’s fair though” Angeal grunted. When his protegee’s fiance looked at him sternly, he shrugged. “It’s different...not a bad different, but not a good different.” Clearing his throat, he forced himself to focus. “I still think you’ve cracked” he said sternly to Genesis. “A week ago you were talking about going to the Sleeping Forest...now you want to look into a computer system we _barely_ understand for Sephiroth’s consciousness.” 

Truthfully, he was surprised Genesis was in on it at all. 

He wasn’t unhappy about it, but he acknowledged the risks that came with hope...and he didn’t like the idea that this could hurt his childhood friend more than he’d already been hurt. As much as the older man wanted to write himself off as a lost cause, he refused to believe it. Genesis was a survivor, even if he had to kick and scream and beat his fists into the ground to do it...he survived. Angeal was also aware that the terminology of _’survival’_ , didn’t necessarily connote any positive archetypes when it came to existence. You could survive and be completely miserable...but he knew that wishing for more was setting the bar awfully high. A member of the staff came ‘round to offer more coffee and he pushed his cup towards her with a weary smile and a quiet ‘thank you’ as the other two did the same. When she’d gone, the former Commander reached for the sugar and dolled it out accordingly. Hope on Genesis’ part was, of course, a kind of engagement. Trying to get the redhead to join them for casual events that didn’t involve work or Saorise was like pulling teeth. And he was hard on Genesis...he wasn’t ignoring that. Sometimes he could be entirely unfair, and entirely too expectant of him...but it was only because he believed in him. 

That didn’t change the fact that the entire situation was beyond suspicious. 

Thierry was an anomaly...an alarming anomaly, if he were entirely honest with himself. Angeal hadn’t met him, and Genesis hadn’t seen him after their apparently very-late night discussion in the bowles of Deepground. If the redhead hadn’t been able to recount the discussion exactly as it had been down to the very last detail to Aerith like he had to him, he might have written it off as an exhaustion-related hallucination. Verville wasn’t in HQ, and a query sent up to Tseng gave light to the fact that the man wasn’t even registered in the employee database. _How_ he had gotten past hundreds of surveillance cameras and several dozen security guards was beyond all of them. The man was, veritably...in the wind. This, at least, gave Genesis enough pause to admit that the whole thing was weird...but he still wanted to check up on it. If he looked at it rationally, Angeal could admit it was fair...because it covered all necessary bases and would dismiss any suspicion they had of being on the wrong path. 

They could...of course...find something that led them in the wrong direction. 

Angeal had been a SOLDIER for a long time...long enough to understand that operations like Deepground functioned on many, many tiers with thousands of complexities. If Hojo had put Sephiroth’s consciousness into a computer...there was a chance he’d reprogrammed him to fit his own means. Which meant if they _did_ find him...it might not be Sephiroth at all. It might have his mannerisms and some of his opinions...but there was a dark flipside to it...a _very dark_ one. He didn’t know how Genesis would manage that...or how to deal with that in a manner that was ethical. They couldn’t just chip some random person and let Sephiroth inhabit their body. Nobody was going to die so that someone else could live. There was also the argument of whether an artificial consciousness was a consciousness at all...whether it functioned on the same level as a human mind. Sephiroth had never been particularly emphatic, but he had feelings, emotions, and the ability to correlate himself with others. There was no guarantee that an echo of his psyche would do the same. 

“I think we should check it out” Genesis said stubbornly. 

“I think if we do, and we find something...we’ll be caught in a situation where we won’t be able to make a decision” Aerith said quietly, fiddling with her mug. “I’ve _felt_ Sephiroth in the Lifestream...I don’t feel him anywhere else. That means that whatever- _if_ there’s anything in that computer, it’s not _alive_. Not in the way we are.” A shiver that was barely perceptible, but apparent all the same. “That scares me” she admitted in a hushed voice. “That scares me more than I want to admit.”

“I don’t know anything about A.I.” Angeal supplied evenly. “None of us really do. But it stands to reason that an A.I. could be altered just like any other computer program by someone with the knowledge and the skillset to do it.” He paused before continuing, keeping his gaze on Genesis as he spoke. “That means that the Sephiroth...or the _semblance_ of Sephiroth in that computer...may not know you like your Sephiroth knew you. He won’t remember that you have a child, and if he does, the concept of it will be skewed...distorted to fit whatever Hojo wants it to be.” His hands shook slightly as he set down his coffee cup. “Which, consequently, means that...whatever we find…” he trailed off, unable to continue. 

“...We’ll have to destroy it” Genesis said flatly. “I know that already, ‘Geal. That’s the only reason I’m doing this in the first place.” 

Well, _that_ changed things. 

“I don’t understand” Angeal said after a moment’s pause. 

The older man snorted and slumped back in his seat. For a moment...he looked weary in a manner that was a little frightening. 

“I’m not stupid” he said hoarsly. “I _know_ that whatever’s on that computer isn’t Seph. But I can’t...I can’t let it exist just to cause pain somewhere else...to someone else.” 

“I thought you wanted to retrieve him” Aerith protested, looking incredulous. 

“Thierry’s a smooth talker” Genesis acceded bitterly. “But he’s not a fucking superstar when it comes to foresight. He didn’t look at Hollander, for example...or at least I really doubt he did.” When Angeal and Aerith continued to look at him like he was speaking in tongues, he shook his head. “Hollander approached me with an offer.” Pushing the sugar spoon about for a moment, the redhead paused and then brought his palm down flat on the table...knuckles pale with suppressed tension. “He wanted to make copies of me...physical copies. An army, to be exact, to overthrow Shinra.” A smirk. “Though, of course, to Hollander it was just about overthrowing his competition...like he could ever measure up to Hojo. It’s not a far stretch to assume that Hojo was a step ahead of Hollander and figured out how to digitize human cognition. I wouldn’t put it past him anyway...and it’s not hard to imagine.” The older man’s expression turned dark. “And why would I let _Hojo_ use Sephiroth, like Hollander used me?” 

“What did Hollander have that made him think he could get you to do that in the first place?” Aerith asked, her voice hushed. 

“He threatened Angeal, and Sephiroth” Genesis muttered. “I confronted him about my family history...and I guess that’s my fault, because that’s what put us in jeopardy in the first place. He knew _we_ knew, so I offered him my DNA to make his ‘army’, but I told him I didn’t want to know what happened to it.” A shrug. “Still don’t know, actually. I’m assuming nothing ever came of it, and if it did, the only person who could tell us is dead.” 

“So you’re telling us there could be copies of you running around that we don’t know about” Angeal said flatly. 

“I think we’d all know if several sexy gingers tried to overthrow Shinra before I did” his friend snorted. “I don’t think Hollander got very far with it all, honestly. And if he did, then his work would have been at Hojo’s disposal when he d- _shit_...”

 _”Now_ you see the problem” Angeal snapped. “And I don’t know _why_ you didn’t feel this necessary to tell anyone about beforehand. If Hollander thought he could make copies of you, then Hojo could _certainly_ make copies of Sephiroth.” He nearly stood, so great was his agitation. Instead, he chose to drink his coffee aggressively. “This is...the level of _risk_ this carries Genesis-! Why the he-”

“- _Because I was fucking dying_ ” Genesis interrupted, a thin tremor in his voice. “We shipped out to Wutai soon after that, and you know what came in its wake. I didn’t think about it, and yeah, it was stupid. I didn’t even look at it that way...and then Hollander was dead and I just wanted to _bury_ it ...everything went to hell so fast.” 

Aerith was strangely silent. 

“Okay” Angeal breathed...as much to himself as to anyone. “Fine...fair enough, I know that a lot of things happened during that time. But we have to alert Administration to this-”

“-How cognizant would you say that a copy is?” Aerith cut in. 

Both men fumbled with their focus for a moment before Genesis seemed to clearly grasp what she was asking. 

“Uh...dumb. Hollander said they were quite dumb, like toddlers. I’d have basically had to raise them first if I took him up on his offer.” 

“I can’t exactly imagine a dumb Sephiroth” Angeal blurted out, and Genesis’ lips twitched momentarily. “Actually, a Sephiroth without the control that our Sephiroth had due to training is three times as much of a risk.” 

“So they’re cognitive anomalies” Aerith murmured. “No wonder I can’t feel them...they’re blank slates...empty until you fill them up.” She shifted. “And even then...they’re just replications of something that already exists in the Lifestream...I’d never be able to see them.” 

“We’re assuming that they exist at all” Genesis hedged. “This is all theory, y’know.” 

“But if they do...we could...use one of them to retrieve Sephiroth’s consciousness from the Lifestream” Aerith replied, a thin veil of excitement coloring her voice. “It’s almost perfect, really.” 

“It’s not” Genesis snapped. “We don’t know what that would do to him, what that would do to the copy. We don’t even know if the copies are as physically sound as our original selves.” When Aerith looked downtrodden the redhead’s expression softened. “I’m not saying I don’t appreciate how you’re thinking” he said gently. “But there’s too many ‘if’s. The first and foremost ‘if’ being that we don’t know if they’re even real.”

“There’s also the fact that if they are real they’re a massive risk to national security” Angeal said darkly. “I still think Administration needs to know about this.” 

“And what about Thierry?” Aerith pressed, folding her hands together. “He’s trying to lead us into a trap. That means he’s a threat, shouldn’t our priority be to find him?” 

“What we _need_ to do is wipe whatever’s on that computer” Genesis muttered. 

“You’re not wiping anything” Angeal said quickly. When the older man looked affronted, he shook his head. “Genesis...even if it’s not Sephiroth...I can’t let you do that to yourself. I’m not saying you’re weak” he added hastily when the redhead appeared to take offense. “But...please...Genesis. You’ve shouldered enough...let me take care of this...please. I _want_ to do it.” 

He knew it was a long shot. 

Even if Genesis could dissociate the A.I. from his deceased lover, there was still the element of connection. Angeal wasn’t ignoring the fact that his childhood friend felt responsible for Sephiroth’s death. He also knew that by deleting whatever was on the computer, the redhead was trying to move forward without blinders on. Thierry had put them in a terrible position, but he’d also given them more information regarding the overall situation than they’d had in years. Maybe it was unwilling education, but he wasn’t ignoring the fact that this was a step forward when it came to figuring out exactly what was going on with the Lifestream, with Hojo, and with the former General. It was impossible to disregard the significance of what they’d learned and it’s correlation with what they were trying to do. He didn’t know if anything would come from it, but it might help them trace Hojo, and it might-at the very least-provide closure. 

“Fine.” Genesis’ voice was-once again-brittle, but the resolve behind his eyes was firm. “You do that, but Aerith’s right, Thierry tried leading us down a black hole. Something needs to be done about him.” A grimace. “Which is easier said than done, of course. Considering that no one’s seen him since I spoke with him.” 

“There’s also the element of the Other” Aerith returned. “The death materia you talked about” she supplied when Genesis raised a questioning eyebrow. “We need to consider the fact that Hojo may not be the only threat we have to contend with. Sorcery is your field, but you can’t fight sorcery if you don’t know where it’s coming from...and this isn’t tied to the Lifestream...not exactly. It feels like the direct opposite of anything vital.” 

“There was never enough to go on in the first place” Genesis replied, his eyes slitted with remembered pain. “And it’s what got this whole mess rolling in the first place. _That_ actually does scare the shit out of me, because it’s coming full circle, and one of us is already dead.” 

“You think it’s connected?” Angeal queried, feeling somewhat skeptical. 

Genesis looked grim. 

“I’m not ruling it out. I can’t...not when it involves Necromancy. If Sephiroth and I set into motion something laid before us… like a constructed wyrd...then that means we’re still working towards a means to an end.” 

A smile...one that was twisted by grief, rage, and despair. 

“That doesn’t mean when I figure it out, I’m not going to make them _suffer_ for it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** Whoo. Alrighty. That's all reposted. Next chapter up by pretty late tonight more than likely. I know I'm reposting rabidly but I have this awful need to work and I don't need to concentrate on other things. This is effectively saving me. Thank you for your understanding and patience.


	12. Chapter 12

“I wanted to help.” 

Vincent’s tone of voice was doing him no favors at all. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Genesis held it for a moment before letting it out again in a rush. Behind him, the tick of the clock on the mantle above the stove was deafeningly loud. Really, the whole _apartment_ felt too small for the both of them...too cloistered and too spacious all at once. The former Turk was sitting at least six feet away on a barstool, his eyes affixed to the microwave; as far as the redhead was concerned he might as well have been up in his face...screaming at the top of his lungs. Tension...there was so much tension between them and he didn’t _want_ it but he couldn’t exactly help it. He couldn’t, not when the face before him was so reminiscent of someone loved and lost; someone who might have been there if the older man had bothered to do something, if he had bothered to do _anything_. 

Genesis had a problem with parents. 

Placing his coffee mug down on the island counter with careful deliberateness, the scarlet-haired ex-First acknowledged that this was a truth he could neither avoid nor control. His upbringing had fostered within him a dark hatred for caregivers that was almost knee-jerk in its virulency. Automatically, he didn’t trust individuals much older than him in the position of fatherhood or motherhood because his experiences with it were so negative he could see very little else. He was biased and bitter for it; acknowledging it helped him compartmentalize, but it didn’t make the wariness...the constant sense of distrust...the fear of betrayal...it didn’t make it go away. More than that, he had severe issues with male authority figures due to Shikro, and then due to Shinra. The redhead was not so far gone that he couldn’t acknowledge his setbacks as much as his successes. 

There was-however-the reality that Vincent was a former Turk. 

_’Former’_ being the keyword because as a former Turk he was not currently in the employ of any agencies that the remainders of the Division had been assigned to. He was one of the few people in Midgar currently entirely off-grid when it came to occupation, identity, and lifestyle. This meant that he was ideal for hunting Thierry, because he was one of the very few people Thierry wouldn’t see coming...hopefully. There was, of course, the issue that Genesis was the only individual who had seen Thierry in person and he was pants at profiling. Bounty hunting was an individual thing, not a SOLDIER thing, and his skills in describing a target had always been slightly dismal. This wasn’t due to a lack of an imagination; rather, it was due to a career focus entirely separate from what was needed at the current time. He was a Commander first and foremost, or he had been, and such skill sets did not come with the position beyond rudimentary training. Turks were notorious for hunting down single targets; whether together or in a group it didn’t particularly matter, Vincent was qualified, and he was certainly available. 

That didn’t, of course, mean that Genesis had to _like_ it. 

The day that he enjoyed teaming up with his dead partner’s potential negligent father would be the day when he declared himself ready to wear flip-flops over socks, and that was never happening. Saoirse liked Vincent, however, and that meant by proxy he had to be at least somewhat tolerable. Being _tolerable_ was difficult, especially when it came to him, but he was trying. He was trying hard. The day after the Genesis, Angeal, and Aerith left Garters and Gorgon’s they’d decided in unison to involve the older man, and because he was now invested in following this through ‘till the end no matter the result, he was stuck with his decision. Vincent was eager to lend a hand and got to work the next day. He didn’t know the details in regards to what exactly he was doing, and he didn’t want to. This was difficult enough, painful enough without knowing every single facet involved. Angeal had texted him a few days later to let him know that he’d deleted all traces of the copy of Sephiroth’s consciousness from the computer and that the remnants had been dismantled and incinerated. 

He spent that day slumped over a couch in the living room drowned in vodka. 

Because no matter how much he wanted to tell himself otherwise, it was still a facet of Sephiroth. He would never know-and perhaps it was for the best-how _much_ of Sephiroth it was...but it was still something that had come from him. Sometimes, he felt like wherever he looked he was seeing him in one way or another. In recent years the sense of pervasive haunting had lessened, but it was worse now that he’d given in. There were times when he was angry at himself for being weak...or what he perceived as weak, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Saoirse deserved answers, and he knew deep down that he at least needed closure. He wasn’t getting any better, not at his core. If he couldn’t find some way to man up and carry on, he didn’t deserve the life he was living...not with a child who loved him so desperately. Gritting his teeth and wrapping his ankle around the leg of the barstool, the former Commander acknowledged that such a train of thought was desperately morbid...but he didn’t know how to be anything else this point. He was fucked up, and he was doing no one any favors by digging his heels in and continuing to be stubbornly fucked up. 

He would need to tell Saoirse the truth. 

About everything...he would need to tell her about everything, and he didn’t know _how_ to, but at this point he owed her some degree of forthrightness. As much as Genesis wished he could take the truth of his partner’s death to his grave, he also didn’t want someone else to tell her. It was, frankly, a _miracle_ that she hadn’t found out about it already but HQ had gone to stupendous lengths to cover up the nature of the General’s death and there were times he was glad for it. The public hated the silver-haired man so much it made him sick already. If he were lauded as the man who had ‘saved the world’ from the ‘corrupt’ posterboy of Shinra’s army he would have killed himself by now; there was no doubt about it. To come out of something so horrific as a hero would have been more damaging than being branded as a brainwashed sycophant. That didn’t mean he was _thrilled_ with how it went otherwise, but he could at least be grateful for that. 

He’d had a lead. 

Vincent, that is. Throwing a sideways glance at the darkly-clothed individual currently staring at his kitchen appliances like he wished them a very painful demise, Genesis reflected that they had at least chosen well. From what he understood, Thierry was more than likely a previous assistant to Hojo, even if he didn’t remember seeing him around. He was mentioned, however briefly, in the classified section of the archives...and only once. There was no indication that he’d been an experiment, but Genesis didn’t want to write that off until he was absolutely sure. The mad scientist’s proclivity for hiding his dirty work was unparallelled and if Thierry had been conditioned into his role there was no telling what he was capable of. He hadn’t gotten that sort of shitty vibe from him, however, and so he withheld judgement until he deemed it necessary or absolute. There was also the very irritating fact that Thierry was too much of an individual to have been an underling of Hojo. Those who worked under the bespectacled lunatic were either molded into servitude or they had been born into whatever program they were designed for and never taught anything else. Thierry was brash, flamboyant, and cheerful in a way that was just on the wrong side of batshit. 

Lunatics fit Hojo’s M.O., but _happy_ lunatics did not. 

The article in question mentioned that Thierry was in charge of a Division centric to the development of materia, which was exactly what Genesis _did not want to fucking hear_ but it was there and there was nothing for it. He was never in the employ of the reconstructed system around HQ, but how he had managed to slip past the security cameras was now not so much a question of method but of inventory. Most of Shinra’s magical supplies had been broken down upon the liquidation of the military aspect of Headquarters. Genesis would be a lying asshole if he said that he hadn’t snuck away with a couple dozen of his choice materia, so it wasn’t impossible that someone else couldn’t have done the same but this again begged the question of why no one had ever seen Thierry before. He was, quite effectively, like a very annoying ghost with a tiny footprint in a fat-ass file system. 

Photo identification was no more helpful. 

Thierry theoretically wore a hat and sunglasses wherever he went, even if it was to a sandwich shop to get a bagel. Tseng had been surveilling the city’s monitoring system for weeks and there was no sign of him. On a normal scale this wouldn’t have been a very surprising thing; there were hundreds of thousands of people living in Midgar; but on a Turk scale it was unprecedented. Shinra had trained the Intelligence Division not just for the sake of watching people, but for the sake of _finding_ people. Whoever their strange anomaly was, he was either painfully aware of this or he simply never left his apartment which was somehow both impressive and depressing at the same time. There was, of course, the possibility that Thierry was their only lead when it came to Sephiroth or Hojo, which made things all the more frustrating and disheartening when they came up with absolutely nothing. It’d been three weeks and the only thing they knew was that he was probably a dab hand at making shiny magic rocks and had a great sense of humor. Up until now...of course. 

Sephiroth had the same bad habit of glaring at appliances.

“Look” Genesis said shortly. “Let’s just...make this quick and spare both of us the agony of getting to know one another when neither of us want to.” 

Vincent’s face spasmed involuntarily and he watched with an edge of bitterness as the older man got up and began to pace. He wanted to tell him that the loft was too small for it, but he wasn’t feeling very benevolent. 

“I wouldn’t be averse to it” was the smooth reply, and the redhead must have looked confused, because he continued. “Getting to know you.” 

The former Commander snorted and ducked his head, pushing his coffee cup away with an errant finger. 

“Yeah? Well I gotta tell you, the feeling isn’t mutual.” 

Crimson eyes surveyed him for a moment in a manner that was far too keen for his liking. 

“I didn’t want any of it” was the tight continuation. “With Sephiroth...what happened to him. I regret it.” 

He nearly threw his coffee mug. 

It was a near thing anyway. The knee-jerk reaction to hearing his lover’s name spilled from lips that-as far as he was concerned-had no right to utter it was automatically _violent_. Because Valentine could _wish_ and he could _want_ but it wouldn’t change a damn thing. They were still there...and Sephiroth was still...wherever he was...in the Lifestream...a cold body moldering on some forgotten hillock...run through by Rapier and left to bleed out. Vincent could commiserate to some degree but he would never truly know the awful pain that was the death of his potential son and he _hated_ him for it. Not only for his ignorance but because some part of Genesis was desperately jealous of the bliss-even if it was not an acknowledged bliss-that came with such lack of foresight. There were days when he’d have given anything to forget, and yet at the same time knew that he had no _right_ to forget. 

“Just spit it out” the redhead replied through clenched teeth. “You’re not going to drag me into sentimentality, old man. I don’t give a _shit_ about that.” 

For a moment, it seemed as if Vincent wanted to argue with him and he really wished he just _wouldn’t_ , because his temper was too short, his nerves were too frayed and his headspace was too fucked up for him to be circumspect. As it was, the gunslinger seemed to think better of it; when he spoke again it was in direct correlation with the initial topic, and the younger man was relieved. 

“Thierry doesn’t have a societal footprint” Vincent said smoothly, coming ‘round the kitchen island to lean on the counter opposite Genesis. Tapping a black leather-clad hand on the marble, he paused before continuing. “But he _does_ have some underground connections.” When the former SOLDIER raised an eyebrow, he straightened. “Reno got some information in regards to him from what’s left of the criminal sect.” 

“We have a criminal sect?” Genesis muttered, feeling slightly disturbed that he didn’t know about it. 

“You can’t crush ill-intent entirely” was the careful response. “No matter how much you want to. Not all of Gaia’s population has the means to live in the society that HQ is toting...I’m surprised you don’t know that.” 

“I’m law enforcement” the redhead snapped, bristling. “A branch of it” he amended. “I’m not sociology.” 

The man opposite him looked very abruptly tired. 

“Be that as it may, ergonomic living has great potential but it comes at a cost. Your finance system is good but its not diligent. You have people with mental health issues who don’t have the parameters of self-sustainment. Which, I’ve noticed, service is limited.” 

“Angeal literally fell in love with his therapist” Genesis said flatly. “Feed me some more bullshit, yeah?” 

“ _Angeal_ had a foot in the door for mental health service because of his prior time _in_ service and his ranking” Vincent snapped. “There is the harsh truth that you have people who are falling through the cracks not because you _want_ them to but because they do not have the ability to step forward. Its a social issue, not necessarily an economic issue, but it _becomes_ an economic issue when that unsustainability starts to fester and that’s the issue you’re facing now; that’s how people like Thierry are slipping through the cracks.” 

“And where exactly are these people living?!” Genesis demanded. “Because I sure as hell haven’t seen a bunch of crazy, homeless, poor people wandering about Midgar.” When the crimson-eyed man opened his mouth to reply he waved a hand. “You know what? Nevermind, I actually don’t give a fuck, it’s not my problem, so send a memo to Aerith or some shit. What does this have to do with Thierry?” 

“It has to do with Thierry because that’s how he’s getting around” Vincent replied tonelessly. “People with no feasible means for sustainment are going to turn to whoever is willing to provide for them and I don’t think Mr. Verville is short on gil. There are people in corner sects who rely on a ‘ferryman’ for goods and living items. In exchange, they let him stay.” 

“You are coming up with a lot of fancy terms” the scarlet-haired ex-First complained. “What exactly is a _corner sect_?” 

“A rotational hostel turned residence for the itinerant” Vincent muttered. “Under the table, of course, exterior appearances remain the same, along with licensure. Whoever pays the blanket tenant fair owns the hostel, and if the owner of the hostel takes the fare from someone else-”

“-Then you have a lot of hidey holes if you have a lot of gil” the younger man groaned. “I get it.” Frowning at the tabletop, he continued. “But that begs the question of how much cash this weirdo has, and if he has a fuckton if it’s his cash or if it’s supplied cash, and if it’s supplied cash then he’s just a vessel.” 

“What motivation would Hojo have to send someone into Midgar at this point?” his companion asked. 

Genesis sure as hell couldn’t think of anything. 

For one, because Hojo had cleared out most of the labs upon his initial escape; there wasn’t anything he’d want enough to return for. That and the fact that the labs had been dismantled ages ago. He was fairly sure the remnants were now a biomedical research center with a rap sheet so squeaky clean he felt rather skanky whenever he was standing next to it. Neither he nor Angeal would be able to provide anything to his mechanisms that Sephiroth couldn’t...unless Hojo hadn’t found Sephiroth yet. Which meant that Thierry was either there to ensure that they followed a certain track when it came to discovering his whereabouts, or because one of them had something that Hojo wanted that would be useful in retrieving him. What that could be, he didn’t know. 

“Mr. R-”

“-Genesis” the aforementioned man grumbled. “Genesis is just peachy.” 

“Genesis” Vincent amended. “I want to surveill Saorise.” 

It felt a little bit like his stomach dropped into his sneakers. 

In actuality, it was mostly like his bowels had fallen through the floor all the way down to ground level. Genesis felt abruptly light-headed, abruptly panicked and abruptly terrified because _of course_ , and how could he have been so fucking blind? Saoirse was the only sentient living remainder of Sephiroth, so of course Hojo would want her. Hell, anyone with half a neurological cell and a dastardly mind bent on world domination would want her. Saoirse Rhapsodos was the daughter of the _Great General Sephiroth_. 

“Oh shit” the former commander muttered weakly before scrambling to his feet. “I have to get to the schoo-”

“-It won’t do any good to pull her out of her daily tasks” Vincent interrupted. 

“Yeah?!” the blue-eyed former first snapped. “Well it might keep her from getting kidnapped, and I sure as fuck am not taking my-”

“-It might force Thierry’s hand” was the urgent interruption. “We don’t know what his game is, but he doesn’t know ours either. If we act too quickly, he’ll get desperate, and that is the _last thing_ we need right now.” When Genesis merely snarled in response, the gunslinger stood. “Think” he pressed. “If _any_ ability that he possesses is anything like the death materia you described, we don’t have the manpower to stand up against it. SOLDIER has been dismantled, we are not equipped to deal with foreign materia, let alone a possible Summoner. It’s rash, and it’s too much.” 

He was right. 

Genesis didn’t _like_ it, but he was right. Poised at the front door, his keys in his hand, the redhead became suddenly aware that his fingers were trembling on the knob. They were, effectively, trembling so much that the whole of it was rattling beneath his palm and he snatched it back as if burned. Ducking his head, he exhaled against the wavering plummet that was adrenaline suddenly left with nowhere to go. It had him sick to his stomach...biting his lip until he tasted copper and suddenly _wishing_ that Sephiroth was there in a way that he hadn’t wished for years. The grief that came with such longing was staggering...it drowned him...consumed him. Because he had not been privy to human comfort in such a long time he’d forgotten what it felt like...and in moments like this...when everything was gone to shit, it was _desolate_. 

“Alright” he croaked. “But I’m picking her up right at dismissal.” 

“Genesis” Vincent said, and there was a vein of gentleness in his voice that made him want to take the older man by the shoulders and throw him out a window. “For what it’s worth, I am _sorry_.” Biting his tongue so hard that the pain was a lightning bolt in reverse...down his throat and trembling in his stomach, the blue-eyed former Commander shook his head and turned so he could slump against the door frame...staring at the ground and willing himself not to fall apart. “I can’t possibly imagine what you’re going through” was the continued commentary. “But I want you to know I respect you.” 

He wanted to be angry. 

He wanted to, but the feeling of rage...or vitriol was slowly being consumed by a limitless void that he didn’t always know how to deal with. There was the painful truth that he’d made mistakes himself...that he was far from perfect. Always...always there was the question of perspective of necessity, of the knowns and unknowns and no matter how much he wanted to tell himself his hatred was justified there was the singular fact that he was not Vincent and he could therefore never pretend to know what he meant for Sephiroth because he had never walked in his fucking shoes. Saorise liked Vincent and Saorise was slow to trust people because of the cruelty she faced at school from her peers. Genesis wasn’t blind to the fact that his daughter had very few friends; and it hurt him that she didn’t. It hurt him more when he realized that not only did she not have friends, but she had stopped trying to look for them. 

“I don’t want to hate you” Genesis muttered to the carpet. When Vincent didn’t reply, he cleared his throat. “I’m trying” he continued hoarsely. “It’s just really fucking hard.” He closed his eyes. “It’s hard to do the right thing, especially when you don’t know what the ‘right thing’ is, or if it's good enough.” 

For a long time his companion was silent, and the emptiness of the apartment felt suffocating.  
It was always like that...when Saoirse was gone...when he was left alone with the reality of his inadequacy. And he knew it was more complicated than that but it was hard to look at it otherwise when there was so much behind him and so little before him. The concept of having _so little_ was selfish...and that only added to his self loathing...because he had more than many people could dream of having but he was still miserable...still stuck in the past. And he _wanted_ to change it, but wanting something and putting it into practice were two entirely different and entirely complex things. Envisioning change was a process that he could do with the bat of an eyelid; making the vision a reality was not so easy. 

“I used to ask myself questions similar to what you’re saying” Vincent finally remarked, his voice heavy. “Until I asked myself what exactly _’good enough’_ was.” Genesis raised his head to look confusedly at the man before him, and those lips curved into a half-smile that was all too familiar. “We’re constantly progressing...changing...the terminology of whatever you want to call it...nirvana of the self. Every time you reach an accomplishment, the goal moves...you cannot achieve a goal that’s constantly moving.” 

Against his will, Genesis felt himself slump as exhaustion hit him like a tidal wave. The keys in his hand suddenly felt unbearably heavy as the reality of always moving...always despairing, and always looking for something that was forever beyond him became painfully apparent. 

“Genesis.”

Vincent didn’t continue until he met his gaze, and when he did, those crimson eyes were sympathetic. 

“Define _’good enough.’_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** Oh look a purple prose chapter that was probably more healing for me than it was entertaining for you x/ I think its because I listened to _'I'll be Good'_ by jaymes young on loop. So I guess blame James young. My writing this week is overall subpar. Working on it.
> 
> Edit: the part about good enough I got from a comic strip called 'Chats with the Void'; check them out here: https://chatsvoid.tumblr.com/faq


	13. Chapter 13

Tracking was not his area of expertise. 

Sitting in the back of a pickup truck somewhere in North Corel, Angeal let out a heavy sigh before checking the map in his hands once more. A rather rough breeze threatened to snatch it away from him and he clutched it tighter because he would need it; he was not intimately familiar with the area, but there was enough adverse activity reported by civilians that he couldn’t ignore it. It was cool, but not unbearably so, he’d brought an extra jacket for when night rolled in, but he was a long ways away from that at this point. Still, the sky was overcast; gloomy and grey and while he was fairly certain it wouldn’t rain, he didn’t want to come unprepared. There was the chatter of migrating birds above him and he tilted his head up to watch them wheel Northwards in their hundreds. It was impossible to identify them at such a height, but he knew they would head to Icicle Inn for the imminent summer months and then return South-to Wutai or otherwise-once cold weather began to set in again. 

His presence was unofficial. 

Unofficial and unapproved, though really, as a police officer he had no place investigating such reports in the first place. Talk had come in through shipping and freight sects of abnormal occurrences at or near his current local. There were whispers of a ‘strange green glow’ not unlike mako...but only in the dead of night. Those who travelled on or aside the coast between Costa Del Sol and Bone Village reported feelings of unease in the deep passage prior to the extended straits. More than that...there were disappearances of a nature that made him uneasy; individuals between the ages of twenty and thirty vanished without a trace only to turn up miles away from where they’d last been sighted; sometimes they were missing things they could go without...like a litre of blood or a finger. 

Sometimes they were missing their eyes or their limbs. 

Angeal wasn’t beyond dismissing a single, extremely psychotic individual but the process was too clinical and the mystery surrounding it was of too much a static quality for him to lean towards anything other than the ultra-abnormal. And he didn’t _want_ it to be that way, but it was there, and he had good reason to be looking. Ever since his conversation with Genesis and Aerith in Garters and Gorgons’ he’d felt like he was walking the edge of a very precarious precipice. His childhood friend, his friend’s sister, and Vincent were doing fine with their surveillance of exterior Midgar for Thierry on their own. They had several decent leads and at this point it was only a matter of time before he was cornered. He helped where he could but his time and his abilities were frankly limited. That and the fact that he and Genesis could barely speak to one another in a civil manner simply negated his need to be present at all. If he could be useful...he would, but he couldn’t be useful when every glance sent his way was imbued with inward struggle and outward vitriol. 

He’d have liked for things to be otherwise. 

It was a naive outlook but it was nevertheless at the forefront of his mind because outside of their revelations regarding Sephiroth, their lives had been simple. It was an unfair mindset...of that he was aware. Because while he might be happy he knew that Genesis was not, but he also knew that he could not be the sole purveyor of that knowledge...he couldn’t carry it and his scarlet-haired former comrade didn’t expect him to carry it...not really. Because while his blue-eyed friend could be as nasty, as pigheaded, and as loud-mouthed as he pleased, it didn’t change the fact that both of them knew each other far better than anyone else, and Angeal knew when he was actually needed and when he was not, when he could provide and when he couldn’t, and right now was not one of those times. Willow was always there for support, but he couldn’t lean on her either, sometimes he felt guilty just for talking to his therapist. It was a knee-jerk response, residual responsibility left over from Soldier; from the idealism that as a Commander, he needed to bear it all and provide the best outcome. 

Saoirse was staying with Gillian as far as he knew. 

There were relevant concerns regarding her safety, regarding the fact that Thierry could gun for her if he felt like he was threatened. He’d stationed a patrol in the neighborhood, and it was-really-a very obvious thing to do but she’d refused to stay jn HQ and he didn’t blame her. He didn’t think Genesis did either, really, because while he had mentioned it, the look in his eyes suggested that he didn’t think their former ‘stomping grounds’ were any safer than anywhere else, and they weren’t. Shinra’s former Headquarters boasted a guard but nothing any different from the rest of the city. The lack of weaponry and the lack of-of course-an entire army negated it’s safety save for perhaps security and Thierry had made his way into Deepground with absolutely no trouble at all. His strength was, quite obviously, none to do with brute force but everything to do with stealth, intelligence, and-also obviously-not a little bit of charm. They could have moved a guard there but the idea of her staying in an empty, soulless room that had once housed an elite member of SOLDIER was hollow to him...it felt like asking for adverse circumstances. 

The police station was another choice, but a teenage girl did not want to shack up in a police station, and he didn’t blame her. They had respite rooms available for officers pulling the occasional double-shift, but it wasn’t exactly a comfortable place and without his presence she wouldn’t see very many friendly faces. Saoirse was still ferried to and from school, but having to go ‘home’ to a bunch of suits and stale doughnuts didn’t appeal to him and he seriously doubted it would have appealed to her. He had nevertheless brought the idea up to Genesis as a courtesy and he was-unsurprisingly-given a look that would have peeled an orange and set his hair afire if such a thing were possible. There was also the fact that none of them were willing to compromise Saorise’s daily schedule to a degree that hobbled her socially. Angeal was not blind to the fact that she had very few, if any, real friends and he was constantly reminded of the fact that Sephiroth had been squirreled away like a dirty secret as a youth. He’d have rather jumped off the helipad than put her in a similar position to her father, and he had no doubt that it was one of the only things that was keeping Genesis from locking her in a safe room. Because while the redhead might have issues with being a bit overprotective, he was never so much to the degree that his daughter felt inherently different. 

There were no reactors, or former reactors, in this immediate area. 

Certainly not near the coast, and even if there had been they’d have been shut down and dismantled for parts eons beforehand. The Ecological Division had been savagely thorough in their determined effort to return life to Gaia, and while there was still work to be done they would never have missed anything so obvious. Reactors were, to a great degree, gigantic and very loud. Even for someone that was blind and deaf the vibrations that processed mako rocketing out of the earth caused would have been an obvious giveaway, and there were no such markers here...not for miles. Glancing at the geiger counter at his side, Angeal’s mouth formed a grim line, because despite evidence to the contrary, he was still getting indicative readings synonymous with surface level mako. Officially, they’d never been called geiger counters, but they were of the same electrical and mechanical assembly save for a few alterations that allowed them to sense energy from the planet and not from radioactive material. Materia and radioactivity really were not such polar opposites in the first place. The readings here did not happen to be as strong as those of a reactor would be, but they were still disturbingly high.

There had been a few incidences of illegal ferrying. 

Despite its volatility, there were parties concerned with all things ill that did not consider themselves above harnessing what Shinra had. By his knowledge, Intelligence and Law Enforcement were quick to stamp out such efforts, but he wasn’t above dismissing it because societally, there was always going to be a lean towards the criminal whether he liked it or not. Mako could be used to harness phenomenal amounts of energy, it was a conduit and its essence could be used to create materia. Even during Shinra’s reign, there was a ban on the use of materia among common civilians but that didn’t stop it from happening and management was hard simply due to the sheer _amount_ available. Eking out the last bits of magical contraband from your general populace was not a pleasant process but it was a necessary one. And he was aware that total deweaponization was not only impossible, it was foolish, but materia could be altered and twisted in ways that even he knew only through hearsay, and he didn’t like the chances of it cropping up again and doing something singularly ugly. Registered individuals were allowed to have weapons in their homes but not before going through a rigorous psychological exam and signing a waiver siting responsibility of ownership and the consequences thereof, mitigated or not. 

It was too early in the day. 

Shifting uncomfortably on hard, ridged metal, Angeal acknowledged that he was too early to witness anything monumental, and that talk of local phenomena had spread too far for anything to happen outside of reported hours. Whoever was behind all of this was going to be careful now that they knew they’d caught the notice of the public. It was foolish to expect anything otherwise and he was not going to delude himself with false optimism. Better that he got there in the day, however, in order to get a lay of the land. The smell of salt from the sea was apparent...but the ground before and under him was fruitless. This alone was a tipoff that something was wrong. Gaia had been slow to heal but it was not bereft of recovery entirely. The only thing that could cause blight, at the current moment, was the leech of planetary energy. With a low noise of dissatisfaction, Angeal hesitated but a moment before grabbing the geiger counter and hopping out of the bed of the truck in an explosion of dust. The device crackled irritatingly-which was _not good_ -before falling silent and he took a moment to mark his location before heading North. The truck was too loud for him to approach in it, and despite the fact that having a quick getaway was wise, he had no desire to compromise his purpose. There were no trees to hide behind...no brush, no cover. The Soldier in him was practically vibrating his misgivings but he dismissed them because they were negligible in the face of his concerns. 

_”Hey ‘Geal, don’t forget your backup!”_

Zack’s voice filtered across his psyche with its usual buoyancy, but this, too he ignored. He couldn’t risk bringing his former trainee into such unknowns. He had too much to lose and while Angeal was not ignorant of the fact that he had quite a lot to lose too, he was more comfortable with risking himself than he was with risking the formerly scrawny Cadet he’d watched grow into a remarkable young man. He had-he reasoned-been through enough to adequately take care of himself, and he was armed even if it was just a handgun. By his knowledge, the automatics previously used by the military-what was left of them anyway-were kept well out of public reach and the only people that had access to them were people he trusted. Angeal was a good shot on a bad day and a fantastic shot on a good one. It _was_ strange to walk into mission-esque parameters without the Buster Sword strapped to his back, but he’d given that life up and he’d not have had half the head to manage it in any case. There were too many memories, both good and bad, attached to his blade for him to take it with him...and despite his actions he was still-quite stubbornly- _retired_. 

The geiger counter only got more annoying the closer he got to the coast. ‘Annoying’ of course, was a lackadaisical sequestration of a very negative indicator but he was not going to get hysterical about anything unless he absolutely had to. Here, at least, there were dunes that he could use as cover...even if they were dilapidated and somewhat eroding. The salinity in the air felt somehow wrong...somehow too permeative even though the wind was mild and the weather wasn’t horrible. It was a bit apocalyptic...really, if he wanted to get morbid about it. The land behind him was empty...cracked, and aching for rejuvenation and the sea before him was dark...averse to the blue waters he’d become accustomed to seeing elsewhere. The sky was an iron sheet and there was an impression-now heavier but still present on his arrival-of a heavy static. Dimensional...there was something dimensional about it and he could understand why people felt so uneasy traversing the strait. 

...He couldn’t see the opposite coast. 

This was alarming, because it wasn’t all that far. If he were very determined he could likely swim to the outlying islands of the Northern Continent with no adverse effects due to his physicality but everything before him indicated otherwise. The topography before him spread out in a bit of a cove-esque nature but he could not see the formations that indicated the curvature of the land either. It was-effectively-like looking out beyond the confines of the shorline Northeast of Kalm Town...a limitless expanse of ocean all the way out to the horizon and it was _wrong_. Frowning, Angeal set down the geiger counter; he knew there was mako close to the surface and he didn’t need any further readings. Crossing his arms, he tried to get a good measure of what he was looking at, but he couldn’t. And he wasn’t a cartographer but he wasn’t an idiot; he had followed the maps exactly...he was Northwest-almost directly-of Costa Del Sol. Realistically, he should be able to _see_ it, but he could not and he couldn’t explain it. 

Magic, of course, was the most obvious answer. 

He didn’t, however, know of magic that could blanket an entire area of coast to make it look like something else. There was some illusion involved in the making of materia, but not to this degree and certainly not to this scale. Genesis, he was fairly sure, would be just as baffled and the idea didn’t bring him any comfort because Genesis was very hard to baffle. There was no one, as far as he knew, left alive that was as intimately in tune with magic as his redheaded friend, and he regretted not bringing him but somehow he didn’t...because in his ignorance he was just an observer, and he was sure the former Commander would want to work with it, perhaps manipulate it and all of it felt parchment-thin; like a paper-mache structure hiding something monstrous that threatened to crumble and reveal a gaping maw at a moment’s notice. It was dangerous, it _felt_ dangerous, but he didn’t know why. Watching a lone gull skim the surfline with what appeared to be very little fruit for its effort, the dark-haired former Soldier blinked as the shape of it was made disproportionate for a moment...like a connection disruption on a television, before it went on. 

Well _that_ was wrong. 

There was a cacophonous, buzzing sensation in his ears as he pivoted to watch the gull continue forward and the sense of adversity only intensified. More than that was a strong sensation of pressure; of _largeness_ , but he did not, or his mind could not, catch up with the ‘how.’

The gull disappeared. 

Not in the sense of disappearing out of his line of view, but in the sense that it simply winked out of existence with a snapping sensation that felt a bit like a rubber-band in the back of his psyche. It was so bizarre that he could only stare stupidly at the area where it had vanished before blinking rapidly in order to gather his bearings. When he had done so, he turned his attention to the waves...at the roll of the surf and the movement of the currents with it. 

It was a loop. 

Retreating a step, Angeal cursed and ran a hand over the stubble atop his chin before pinching the bridge of his nose. 

_”What a big, fat, pain in the ass.”_

Repressing a semi-hysterical snort, Angeal gave a grudging nod to the comment in the tone of his best friend’s voice that danced through his mind. Because this was _complicated_ , it was complicated to the point that it was irritating, and it would have been nice if it was simple. The gull-the _exact same gull_ , if it was indeed a gull-passed by again and he gave it a sincerely deprecating glare before running a hand through his hair. Holograms were off the table. There was nothing advanced enough, even with the technology in their possession, that could simulate a coastline to the degree that one could _feel_ the surf. It was rather like someone had grabbed an ocean from somewhere else, copied and pasted it to the one underneath, and then performed a simple animation that would have been enough to fool anyone who didn’t stick around-and there was no _reason_ to stick around in such a depressing place-and then went on their merry way. It felt like something Genesis would do as a prank, but it also felt _bad_. 

So, a combination of engineering and thaumaturgy. 

Raising a dark brow, Angeal scrubbed a hand over his face and acknowledged that that was not something he wanted to look at but he was forced to. Maybe structurally sublevel, projective to the point upwards and hiding what was actually there. Theoretically, the projection would span the length of everything it was hiding, which meant that it was very large and, by proxy, whatever it was hiding was _very large_. It would circulate-he reasoned-in order to create the same illusion off the coast of the Northern Continent and any ships passing by would move behind a rock formation-or perhaps a reef-designed to look like a disaster to any boat that decided to go near it. Kneeling in the sand, the dark-haired former Soldier rummaged about until he found a decent-sized rock. Hefting it in his palm, he deemed it worthy before chucking it straight out to the horizon. 

It exploded. 

Really, it evaporated; and he was suddenly _very_ glad that he had not deigned to venture into the water. Lifting his arms above his head and gripping the back of his neck with both hands, he began to pace. It wasn’t just a projection, then, it was also an energy field of some sort. This was-effectively-so beyond him he couldn’t even begin to bring up a rational explanation for it because it would need to be an energy that was not only conductive to water-which was easy enough-but one that did not breach its confines due to the amount of friction tidal movement would cause involving anything volatile and liquid substance. Feasibly, Sephiroth might have been able to glean some insight from all of it if he’d stood around and ‘hmphed’ a fair bit but Angeal was not anywhere near Sephiroth levels of intelligence. He was also not a scientist-

_-Oh._

Lowering his arms, the dark-haired ex-First stared at the illusion before him with an increasing sense of foreboding. Because yes, this was _science_. It was advanced science, not dissimilar to the disproportionate leap in technology they’d encountered in Deepground. Because if you could create a neural network...what was stopping you from creating a hologram in the middle of nowhere that vaporized anything or anyone that came too close? It was, perhaps, lucky that at this point the geiger counter went berserk. _’Berserk’_ was too tame a word, because the crackling noise he’d somewhat shoved towards the background grew cacophonous in nature before abruptly giving up the ghost and going dark. Striding over to it, Angeal scooped it up and stood in time to see the coastline shift...and it was not so much a shift as it was a digitalized fallout...a trickle of panels that skittered downwards like the draw of a theatre curtain rustled and then swept apart. 

The ‘curtain’ didn’t open completely, however. 

It only opened enough to let something through, and that something was framed against a black, hulking shape that was somehow distorted so that he couldn’t see it...as if he was looking at it from underneath several feet of water. The buzzing in his ears intensified, became nearly unbearable. It was a structure, of that he was certain, though he couldn’t discern its exact shape; there were bright lights spotlighting from it...bright enough that the dismal day on his end seemed plunged into darkness and the only thing that could do that was mako. More concerning, however, was that which was before him...because it was _huge_. He was, at first, reminded of something not dissimilar to a Behemoth; the movement of the head-a swinging, predatory motion-was not all that different. The neck, however, was too long by _yards_ and there were no horns atop the head. Really, the entire head seemed to be composed of horns; like a hooded, alabaster artichoke with a swine-like snout directly in the middle. The body was prehistoric in nature, like a reconstruction of the skeletons one saw in pictures of Bone Village. Elongated like the neck with four great...tree-trunk sized feet and a sweeping reptilian tail...it was mythology personified.

The rumbling noise was coming from it. 

It was a jarring, rolling sort of husk that-when accompanied with the shudder of its footsteps-was not unlike the growl of a thunderhead. Upon catching sight of him...that massive, seemingly endless neck rose and it was a lethal...smooth arc that left him dwarfed in its wake. The rumbling increased to a roar that blew the sand back from the dunes and knocked silt into his eyes. Somehow..amidst it all, he sensed that this was quite a small threat in comparison to what he would encounter behind that veil, and the idea brought him absolutely no comfort. This was Hojo, and now Hojo knew that he knew and his time to go back and regroup and deal with this was running thin...if he wasn’t entirely too late already. And Angeal was not a coward, but he didn’t have his sword and he knew just from looking at what he was facing up against that bullets would only enrage it. He was, in the end, sensible and not suicidal, because he had a lovely girlfriend, he needed to report this, and he _did_ need backup as it turned out. So when the Catoblepas charged he didn’t walk calmly into his absolutely certain demise. 

Angeal ran in the opposite direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** Keep pulling monsters from other...whats. Other worlds? Of FF because... _monsters_. Technically, however the Catoblepas is a creature from Ethiopian mythology but sort of looks like a fancy cow and not like a fancy stegosaurus. Also some gnarly amounts of purple prose here. 
> 
> I know I am slow updating this. I've said this in other fics, but I've moved and work. Also, I have a neighborfriend [?] who for whatever reason invites me over to watch adult swim, and we were watching american dad when she turned to me and mentioned that Roger reminds her of Genesis if Genesis was about 2000 more times horrible, a cross dresser and an alien and the concept got stuck in my severely hedgy brain and I could not write anything with Genesis without hearing Roger's voice for a while. *I do not encourage watching american dad, it will rot your brain. There are better things to put in it. 
> 
> Much thanks for reading.


	14. Chapter 14

Fairy tales.

Standing on a flat expanse of sand, Genesis squinted at what was before him and amended his mental statement; the _stuff_ of fairy tales....this sort of thing, anyway. He lived in a world of impossibles, but this was, scientifically, impossible. Magically, maybe not, but with a lot of alteration. Socially, it would have been a PR nightmare waiting to happen if most of the tabloids existing in Shinra’s reign hadn’t been dismantled and discredited on legal grounds. Then again, he reflected darkly as the projection on the beach wavered slightly, this likely would have been Shinra’s doing during Shinra’s _reign_ and he wouldn’t have such a large fucking headache regarding it because he would already know what it was about. The times of Shinra were, however, long gone, SOLDIER was long gone and now it was left to the remnants of the empire to muck about and dig up the bones that the regime had squirreled away so that they could be examined and then dismantled post-haste.

That was, of course, easier said than done.

Snorting, the former Commander rolled his eyes and did not fail to acknowledge the redundancy of the statement. Logically, he could put two and two together in a manner definitive and come up with a conclusion that, while not concrete, was plausible. Deepground was, at least to some degree, to Hojo’s credit; whether via collaborative or otherwise, that didn’t particularly matter. What _did_ matter was that Deepground didn’t exist anymore. Really, most of Hojo’s premeditatively constructed side-fiascos didn’t exist anymore so of course the ‘good doctor’ would need to think up something even more monstrous tied to previous monstrosities lickety split. Somewhat morbidly, Genesis wondered if Hojo ever got tired of making other people’s lives extremely shitty. He wasn’t entirely sure, at this point, what the former Head of the Science Division really got from being such a royal pain in the ass.

“So, where’s your dinosaur?” he remarked at length, looking sardonically at Angeal, who blinked.

“My _what_?”

“The Titan, or whatever” Genesis said, blinking slowly. “The Catoblepas.”

“Not here” was the reply at length. Another pause and the dark-haired former FIRST shifted from one leg to the other. “Or, at least, not present in a manner that we can see. It only appeared-” Angeal appeared to struggle with himself. “-Made itself _apparent_ when I made contact with the barrier.”

“Kind of like a tripwire, then” Genesis supplied impatiently, and his former comrade hummed in uncertain agreement.

They were getting along tenuously.

Watching as Angeal shuffled away a few steps to fumble with his radio, Genesis observed but a few seconds more before refocusing on what was ahead of them. The issue, he supposed, with staying continuously pissed off at his childhood friend was the fact that they were _childhood friends._ In a different, not-so-realistic world, maybe he’d have been able to drop him like an old hat and holler himself into a biscuit, but he did have some semblance of humanity in him that recognized that sort of bond as unbreakable, even if at times it felt sullied. That and the square fact that he wasn’t as angry at anyone as he was at himself. The scarlet-haired man spent an exorbitant amount of time projecting his inner self-hatred onto those around him, and it was immature and uncalled for. Eventually, even he was going to run out of excuses for being a dick.

Genesis had never suffered any delusions in regards to who he was.

Even with Sephiroth’s death, his emotional turbulence had nothing to do with the question of _’who am I?’_ and much more to do with _’what the **fuck** do I do now?!’_. The separation of person and identity-physical or otherwise-had never been more apparent to him than when the former General passed; he’d felt, physically, like a hollowed out shell...but his mind was _howling_. In some ways, it allowed him to sympathize with Sephiroth more; with who he was to Shinra, who he was as a person, who he was biologically, and the cataclysmic split between it all was never more apparent. At times he resented it because the equanimous sympathy was painful, and because he’d hated himself for never talking to the younger man about it on an intrinsic level. He’d gone to ridiculous lengths to comprehend SOLDIER’s poster boy, but he’d never just fucking stopped and _asked_ him; _’so, Seph, who are you, in your own eyes?’_

That sort of thing, he was discovering more and more, deeply mattered.

Watching as the loop of the simulated seagull played for what felt like the thousandth time, Genesis reflected that he wasn’t entirely sure of whether Sephiroth could have answered the aforementioned question at the time regardless. Especially with so much erasure-or perhaps lack of formulation entirely-of his identity and individuality mitigated by the expectations of SOLDIER. That wasn’t even taking into account the emotional and physical brutality meted out by Hojo, and the immense pressure and scrutiny the silver-haired man received from the media and general public alike. Rubbing an absent-minded hand over a somewhat stiff shoulder, the redhead grimly acknowledged that it was still a question that would have been worth asking, and in Sephiroth’s case, more than once, twice, or thrice. Not because the silver-haired ex-First was weak, delusional, or indecisive, but because with what little freedom the younger man had received in their relationship, he was going to evolve, and perhaps gradually, but those viewpoints would have changed with time...and it was painful to think he might have missed them. The Genesis of yore was so focused on his own sense of freedom that he forgot-quite often-that other people could be prisoners too; even if their shackles were gilded in silver and gold, in a false sense of liberty and notoriety.

Vincent was true to his word.

He was also subtle; something Genesis was thankful for. _’Thankfulness’_ when it came to acknowledging the necessity of surveilling one’s daughter was already tenuous, of course, but the reality of it was still there. Saoirse had agreed to the whole thing reluctantly, in a sort of world-weary way that told him that she was getting a bit tired of being in the loop but not entirely. At this point, he couldn’t really blame her...not that he ever had, but his window for opportunity regarding disclosure was drawing to a close, and he knew that if he didn’t come clean someone else would step in to take his place. A part of him was angry with Angeal for telling her so much, but that anger was, again, displaced from a part of himself that acknowledged that Angeal was doing what he could not...would not.

Thierry was another subject entirely.

Mostly because he was beginning to suspect that Thierry wasn’t a person at all. Every time they got close to locating him, all traces of him vanished; and he vanished in a manner not gradual, but sudden and abrupt...like erasing all proof of his carbon footprint was as easy as breathing. He’d been lax, admittedly, in taking...whatever it was, seriously. When it came to persona, Thierry was indomitably positive, fairly harmless if a little bit crazy, and not a little bit good looking. The last itinerant facility they’d triangulated his location at had bodies hanging from the ceiling when they arrived. There was no sign of a struggle. It was, really, like whoever had decided to dispatch of fifty score people down on their luck had simply asked them politely to hang themselves and they had done so. No blood...no wounds indicative of distress...just a hell of a lot of death...and a hell of a lot of mass panic. Angeal had spent the last week or so so embroiled in public service-that public service being the calming of civilians-that Genesis hadn’t been entirely sure that he would join him. What little resources at their disposal could cover up some disappearances off the coast; it couldn’t cover up mass murder.

This made Thierry a person of interest on a national scale.

There was no point hiding his identity or movements at that point, and what little remained of the Turk Division-though it was not called the Turk Division-practically chewed him and Tseng new assholes when they learned what they were trying to figure out on the down-low. Realistically, Genesis knew there wasn’t an excuse for it. Not when things began to point to Hojo, and certainly not when Sephiroth’s consciousness-or a proxy of his consciousness-had been discovered on the mainframe computer in Deepground. Still...even with new and greater resources at the disposal, they’d failed to catch Thierry...and every time they got close the body count got higher...and eventually that forced them to stop. Closing his eyes, Genesis exhaled unsteadily. Giving up felt like _losing_ , but at the expense of other lives, it wasn’t worth it...and he knew it even if the SOLDIER in him wasn’t quite so self-aware. For now, Thierry and whatever operations he associated with and acted upon could remain unidentified. There were more pressing matters at hand.

Like gigantic, evil forcefields.

Not that the forcefield as an entity in of itself was malicious, more the individuals that had constructed it. Chewing somewhat mulishly on his tongue, Genesis acceded to the fact that he had a hard time acknowledging when he was beat. And, really, _beat_ was the wrong word, mostly due to it being the wrong mentality. Sorcery was not his niche, it wasn’t the same as materia and he’d never invested enough time in it for the aspect of offense when faced with something magically greater than him to be plausible. A part of him wished that he’d thought to bring Aerith, but the risk to her was too high, and he didn’t know if it would hurt her or not. Not that he was at any less of risk, but he could be autonomously risky with himself without feeling guilty about it. It was a huge problem, of course, but when it came to working with it, he had zero idea where to start, and there wasn’t much else to do but charge straight in and without a significant force behind him, he didn’t feel comfortable with it.

“Genesis” Angeal began hesitantly. “If you ever wanted to talk about anything…”

He trailed off, but it was enough. Almost automatically, the part of him that rejected emotional connection rose up like some jacked up serpent.

“We’re facing possibly the greatest threat to our current world peace and you wanna have a therapy session?” the redhead snorted.

“We’re not getting anywhere here” the dark-haired former first countered, though gently. “You know it, I know it, we’ve been here for days, and it’s been ages since we actually said anything halfway decent to one another. I’m _tired_ of having this between us, Genesis. You’re my best friend, and I feel like if we can’t look past our own narratives in order to face each other, then we’re not just wasting our time here, we’re downgrading what we’ve built together in the first place.”

He was right.

In regards to their current operative being entirely unfruitful, in any case. They’d been camped out in the wastes beyond the forcefield for nearly three days, and nothing had come of it. He’d spent the last seventy two hours squinting at what might as well be a hologram, getting sand and grit in his face and avoiding talking to Angeal for no reason at all.

“I feel like we discussed this already” the former Commander muttered. “When we were dismantling Deepground.”

“That wasn’t really a discussion” was the dry reply. “It was just you lauding me...or perhaps what I used to be, and demonizing yourself.”

“What do you want me to say, Angeal?” Genesis snapped. “Sometimes life just gives me a shitty attitude, and I’m sorry for it, alright?”

“I don’t _need_ you to be sorry” was the quiet response. “I just need to know that I haven’t lost you entirely...to...whatever this has become...whatever everything has become. And not because I think you’re some sort of hacked off hanger-on, but because I value you.”

He wanted to get pissed off about it.

Kicking at a clumped gathering of semi-wet sand, Genesis bitterly acknowledged that it served him _better_ to be angry about it. Irrationality and vitriol had served him well in the past few years and letting go of it was much harder than deciding to change things and then putting it into action.

“I miss Sephiroth” Genesis finally said hoarsely. “I’ve said that a hundred fucking times, and each time I say it, it doesn’t get better.” A pause, and he forced himself to swallow around the lump in his throat. “I’m angry at myself, because I couldn’t think of anything better to do than run him through that day. And I’m _angrier_ at myself, because every time I think back on it, every time I replay that moment in my head, I _still_ can’t think of anything better.” He gestured helplessly. “Over a...a decade down the line, and things don’t look peachier on my end, when it comes to all that. I’ve seen people recover from the death of a partner that was with them far longer than I had Sephiroth.”

“I think your situation is a bit unique in that respect” Angeal said dryly, and the laugh that barked its way out of Genesis throat was a little unhinged.

“You’re telling me.” The synthetic-or perhaps real mixed with synthetic-waves lapped against a fetid shore as the desolate seascape before them played its endless repetition. “I feel like we’ve had this conversation a thousand times, Angeal. In different forms, yeah, but still the same.”

The geiger counter began to kick off, but that was normal...especially so close to the invisible construct.

“Do you remember when you stole three barrels of Banora apples and we spent the day throwing them at the cows?” the redhead’s childhood friend remarked airly.

Against his will, Genesis felt his lip twitch.

“Yeah” he huffed out in an uncertain laugh. “What a waste of good fucking apples.”

“Oh, I don’t know” Angeal replied, smiling. “I had a good time.”

“Yeah, me too” the former Commander shot back, allowing himself what felt like the extreme luxury of a small smirk. “Was almost worth the tanning I got from Shikro.”

“What made it worthwhile, though, was spending it with you” Angeal continued slowly. “Maybe it’s not about that moment...Genesis...when Sephiroth died. Maybe it’s the moments before that...your beginning, your ending, and everything in between.” A shake of a dark head. “I know it seems shallow, and easy for me to say, but if you and I only focused on our disagreements, the bad times, we’d never have been as good of friends as we are now.”

“It’s hard to forgive him too,” Genesis replied after a pause. “For _leaving_ , for choosing to leave.”

“You and I both know that Sephiroth barely had any control in the end” Angeal said gently. “And you and I both know-you more than me-what kind of infernal torture Sephiroth went through not just as a youth but as an adult.”

“I know” the redhead replied, his voice barely above a whisper. “But it’s hard to look at it from his perspective, when my perspective feels so painful that it blocks out everything that he might have intended, noble or not, just or not.” A short laugh. “And I talk a lot of shit, I tell myself a lot of bullshit regarding that...but I know his intentions were to protect us. It _pisses me off_ that not once did he think of himself, but some part of me knows he did what he did with the only thought in his mind...the only two _thoughts_ being Saoirse and I.” Against his will, Genesis felt his throat constrict, and when he could speak again, his voice was thin. “I’m not sure I’m worth that fucking much, Geal. Look what I’ve done with what he tried to give us.”

“You have a beautiful daughter-” his friend began to argue.

“-Who I make absolutely _miserable_ ” the scarlet-haired former Soldier cut in. “And if I’m not making her miserable, I’m making her worry.”

“I think you’re too hard on yourself” was the firm retort. “And Sephiroth isn’t here to tell you what he thinks. You need to stop living up to imagined standards that I honestly believe would not apply were the person you’re killing yourself missing and trying to please alive.”

“It’s not black and white like that” Genesis snapped, glaring at the now-practically-vibrating geiger counter.

“It’s not,” Angeal agreed heavily. “But Genesis, you’re living with a ghost...and the worst part is that I don’t think that ghost is an accurate representation of who Sephiroth really was.”

It was painful to acknowledge that Angeal was, again, correct.

Shifting his stance in the sand, Genesis tilted his head up to an iron grey sky and exhaled. Sephiroth, he was sure, would not have wanted him to hang onto a false impression of him so long. Whether that impression was borne from something substantial or not, it was pretty much a giant middle finger to his memory. The General he’d known would have never asked him to suffer for so long. And the terminology of _suffering_ was so difficult and so vague to him. He didn’t like applying it to himself, even if it was accurate. And he had _good memories_...memories that made his recollections in regards to the younger man’s death pale in comparison.

“So what do we do about this?” the redhead finally said, gesturing at the false ‘image’ before them. “I’ve got zilch in this area, ‘Geal, it’s beyond me.”

“Maybe we should-”

-Whatever they _’should’_ , however, was lost as the geiger counter promptly exploded. Really, it was incinerated, and a strange hum filled Genesis ears that was nostalgically familiar. It was pain and pressure, but it was also reminiscent of something that he couldn’t quite place. It seemed to grow louder and louder...making the expanse of beach they stood on seem somehow small. Vaguely, Genesis was aware that Angeal was hollering something at him...that he didn’t seem to be as affected as he was...but in the face of the unbearable buzzing, none of it registered. What _did_ register was the fact that the world seemed to be spinning inwards...that the sky was getting further away and that the ground was suddenly nearer than it ought to be. Genesis hit the ground and tasted copper in his mouth but he couldn’t move.

The world swirled down a glittering...riotous drain that reminded him of the icy North.

Of frozen glittering trees and emerald eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** Slowly moving through this. With this whole pandemic thing Not going out as much, and going a bit stir crazy. I've gotten the chance to write; just not technically lovin' it. _With_ said pandemic, for a writer who writes smutty things, there is also an increase in demand for smutty things to pass time. Commissions are high, essentially; work>fics , ∴, work=food, fics ≠ food. _Food good._
> 
> Thar's an error in that last chapter where Angeal mentions the Buster Sword and I'm fairly sure that was for parts; I will get around to correcting that. There may also be spelling errors but it’s two am and I’ve been writing this short thing since March. live in a duplex, co-tenant is a close friend of mine. she has covid so been trying to help her while keeping social distancing and my own concerns in mind, which is why I haven't gotten to other fics.
> 
> Have a great week and thanks for reading and for your patience


	15. Chapter 15

Angeal did not have all the answers.

It would have been nice if he did, but he did not despite some measure of level-headedness greater than Genesis, and some measure of forgiveness greater than Sephiroth’s. He supposed if he was as ambitious as his childhood friend, that might be different...or all of it would be different, but, again, it wasn’t. He’d joined Soldier with some aspirations in regards to heroism, but his core objective had been to be a facet-however small-in making the world a better place.

Admittedly, the mantra of heroism had served him well when it came to training recruits, and there were times when he was rather gung-ho for the narrative himself; when he’d gotten swept up in the regime more than he’d have liked to admit. If things hadn’t gone the way they had...he was uncertain if he’d have managed to look outside the cage that was his sense of duty in order to understand that there was more than that. There were times...particularly in the early days of training, when unease had set in, but that had been quickly swept under the rug by the bellowing of his drill sergeants. When you were training youngsters to micromanage an entire planet, you couldn’t afford to let them stop and think that what they were doing was wrong and immoral.

He would never, of course, have thought he’d make it to First either. That was something about his time in Soldier that had come entirely as a surprise. And maybe it shouldn’t have, considering that he seemed to be continuously shunted to the forefront when it came to simulating combat sequences in the VR room and field training. He hadn’t, however, known at the time that there was anything particularly special about him-if one could call being injected with alien _‘special’_ -thusly, he’d merely operated under the impression that he was more dutiful and less boisterous than some of his peers and therefore a more valuable leader. At most, he’d aspired to make Sergeant. Commander, from his viewpoint at the time, was beyond him. Shinra did an excellent job toting the glory of Soldier, in terms of recruitment, without focusing too much on rank and more on glory. If there was anything he would go back and tell his past self, it was that glory had little worth in the face of suppression and a complete lack of human dignity.

Angeal didn’t know everything, so when Genesis disappeared from the beach...not feet away from him, he panicked.

Really, he panicked as spectacularly as he was personally capable of panicking and Angeal considered himself a relatively mellow person all things considered. Said panicking involved him jogging around in circles for a while yelling his friend’s name into empty space before making a beeline back to the truck to radio in whoever was closest. It took him an hour to get ahold of a single soul-which was not exactly surprising considering he was in the middle of nowhere-and that single soul was not the brightest, and it took him another good thirty minutes to convince said individual to patch him through to whatever amounted to the local authorities, which was a sub-branch of a sub-branch of a sub-branch of a startup law enforcement committee heavily opposed by the locals and they were very reluctant to speak with him. Angeal was not ashamed to admit that he got impatient-might have hollered some more-before they put him through to a less sub-branchy sub-branch and by then it was midnight and there was no sign of Genesis but at least someone was coming...or someone had news that some _thing_ had gone terribly wrong.

To an outsider the situation might have seemed humorous.

Angeal supposed, in a fit of morbid humor, that if Genesis had gotten himself stuck in a mud puddle and he’d been incapable of getting him out on his own then it would have been. This was, unfortunately, not the case; while he could contemplate situations in which hilarity was appropriate, it _really wasn’t._ It was, effectively, so concerning he nearly charged the barrier on his own but he-once again-did not have backup and he was _not_ equipped- _once again_ -to face a prehistoric supposedly Behemoth creature from who knows where. Moreover, he did not have the technical or magical know-how to disable whatever-it-was on his own and he knew-almost instinctively-that it would be foolish to try. That was something Soldier instilled in recruits as well; not necessarily a _know your limits_ mentality, that would have been too kind, but a _’know when your enemy has better cards than you’_ sort of mentality. He didn’t like it, but he was able to accept it-though somewhat radically-in order to focus on the bigger picture, which was to procure backup and maybe figure a way around everything.

‘Backup’ came in the form of Zack, and a rather exhausted-looking Tseng.

Tseng had been put in charge of monitoring the overall ethicality of surveillance in regards to post-Shinra society. It was a demanding job with terrible hours and there were times when Angeal felt sincerely sorry for him and there were times when he sincerely felt like he deserved the lack of sleep. He was rather suspicious, however, of the fact that Shion looked exhausted at that current moment because he’d been forced to fly or drive who knows how many hours with his former comrade. Aforementioned comrade had managed to deck himself out in a somewhat impressive likeness of their former uniforms and Angeal bit his tongue to keep the reprimand that sped to the tip of it from slipping out. As much as he would have _liked_ to berate the younger man for emulating their former-and unsavory-careers, there were times when the Soldier in him took over when he was on duty, and to chastise him for it wouldn’t have just been pointless, it would have been hypocritical. Vincent was not with them, and he was informed that Sephiroth’s perhaps-progenitor had stayed behind to look after Saorise who was-understandably-rather upset. Zack said ‘upset’ delicately, and it was with these words that Angeal understood that things curbed more into _’hysterical’_ and so he only felt worse. He wanted to point out that his mother was just as qualified, but his mother was not armed to the teeth so realistically she was rather less qualified.

Tseng spent perhaps two hours in front of the sea barrier before declaring that it would simply need to be eradicated.

_’Explosively’_ was an adverb that was thrown about, and while Angeal was not necessarily up for fanfare he was cogent enough to understand that the need was urgent. There was some talk of negotiating ransom once they got through and managed to dispatch of the behemoth, but all of them were aware that there wasn’t really anything that they had that Hojo could potentially want.

_”There is a high chance he has Rhapsodos and he potentially has Sephiroth”_ Tseng had declared tonelessly. _”There’s very little we could offer him greater than that.”_

Stealth was out of the question due to the barrier as well. Under any other circumstances, Angeal would have offered himself to take a solo mission in to retrieve. It was easier, safer, and it risked far fewer lives than what they were planning would. None of them knew how many or of what nature their adversaries would be if they engaged them in direct combat. And Angeal had seen _enough_ of combat, particularly in consideration of the eradication of Deepground. Their numbers had been greatly diminished by that, and then further diminished by those with mortal wounds who had passed away at a later date...succumbing to grievous injury. All of it put them at a distinct tactical disadvantage. Those more self-preserving might have turned tail and gone home, but he was not ready to do that, and there was the singular fact that ignoring something like this would not make it go away. So they coordinated a plan for detonation, which had an implementation trajectory of about three days and that was pushing the chronological bar _far_ past appropriate standards of preparation.

There were times when he stopped and wondered how it had come to this.

Rather, how it had come to this, to Hojo, _again_...but he supposed that he shouldn’t be surprised. Life had been too easy, so of course it was going to get much, much harder before any relative peace could be attained. He held no illusions of honor when it came to their particular adversary; if he saw Hojo, he would kill him, without hesitation. The man had caused him and his loved ones far too much grief to be offered the courtesy of a trial and he was so slippery Angeal was sure that by the time they got him back to Midgar and arranged a court date he would snake away again and they’d have to do it all over. Loop after loop, time after time, and his patience for mercy was cauterized at a point of heinous pain and unforgivable transgression. This was only made stronger when Saoirse managed to get hold of him-somehow, he assumed Vincent must have set her up with a radio-and begged him to tell her the minute they located her father.

_”You’ll find him soon, right?”_

_”I...I hope so...I do.”_

Angeal did not like giving concrete reassurances in the face of such uncertainty, and it hurt him to not be able to give her any sort of solace in the knowledge that Genesis would come back. Realistically, he didn’t know if _he_ would come back, but such fears were things that he had learned to tamp down and stomp out on the battlefield. War was war; sometimes you didn’t come home from war...it was a risk understood and acknowledged by every former Soldier that had stood and taken an oath of loyalty and fidelity to the company. Now, however, his loyalty was to those he loved and to the world he was trying so hard to protect. Willow, of course, did not understand. She did not understand his willingness to sacrifice himself in the face of something so monstrous, not again, and it was the first fight they ever had. Twisting his fingers in the looping, overtly-short cord that tethered him to the radio, his arguments...in the face of his abiding love and respect for the woman on the other end of the line...seemed shallow...even if he knew they weren’t. He felt, effectively, torn in half and when the conversation ended, some part of him was uneasy about the possibility that if he did come home from this, he might come home to find the woman he loved gone because he had not chosen her. By the end of their talk, he could feel her-almost physically-pulling away from him. And he understood it, on a societal and normal level...he did...and perhaps with his physiology in mind it was for the best...but it still hurt.

_It hurt so much._

When it came to excerpts regarding love, Angeal had very very little experience save for the few and poorly recollected memories of how his father had treated his mother. His father too, however, had always put the needs of those they worked with in Banora over the needs of his family. Perhaps not intentionally, but he was still driven by duty, even if it was not militant in nature...his viewpoint was militant in the sense that one should sacrifice for the many and not the few. It wasn’t to the degree of extremity that Shinra expected from recruits, but it was to the degree that such work had killed his sire long before he’d ever gotten the chance to know him. There were times, when Angeal was very young, that he’d resented him for that...but now that he had served, he couldn’t. Servitude to the public demanded sacrifice on a scale that most were not prepared to pay...even if it resulted in peace. He might comprehend it, but he could not expect anyone else, no matter how much they cared for him, to tolerate it.

Assembled, they had perhaps five-hundred men of varying professions at their service.

A good portion of them were former Soldiers, but it was not really enough...if the numbers they would face were anything close to Deepground. Angeal had made the request to attend optional because he did not believe in forcing the idealisms of sacrifice on the heads of those who had served before...but he knew almost every face amongst those who were former faces. Some of them were still wounded from the battle at what was left of HQ, and he didn’t like to think that they would be the first ones to go...but they refused to leave, and he was forced to accept it...as he’d been forced to accept everything that had come before. Options when it came to defense were abysmal. They had swords-a few of them-though nothing like Rapier or the Buster Sword, and they had your assorted handguns and some assault rifles he assumed had been squirreled away before they were purged from public access. The police force at least had their uniforms, and with the uniforms came some manner of protection in the form of kevlar. These were dispersed evenly; staggered throughout the ranks and ranking itself was a whole different mess but they did what they could. Zack was efficient, if overenthusiastic. He was shadowed by Cloud, who was looking at the whole thing like it was some sort of monstrous nightmare propagated from the deepest and darkest recesses of his psyche.

In the end, the Catoblepas was not as large an issue as they'd thought it would be.

Things went off initially without a hitch, as some might say. Detonating the loop was likely the most cogent thing they did, because when it detonated it set off a chain of similar-though smaller-detonations down the coast and the whole thing fell like a stack of cards. It was easy...almost too easy. The Catoblepas itself posed a greater challenge; mostly due to the fact that it was so large...and coordinating a large amount of people to maneuver around something so massive without getting crushed was difficult. Angeal was adamant in regards to the fact that ammo shouldn’t be wasted on it...and it turned out that it was a good call. The first-un-condoned-bullet that glanced off tough hide nearly took out a member of the first row battalion; nobody made the same mistake after that. It was a shame, he’d reflected grimly, barking orders amidst the deafening, vibrational lowing that threatened to burst his eardrums, that something so rare had to be dispatched because someone else had seen fit to use it as a defense mechanism. Then again...when Zack managed to dispatch it piggybacking off the momentum of a fantastic-and somewhat self-negligent-leap, the blood that spilled from a headless torso was mixed with a familiar glowing and unsettling bluish green. It hissed when it touched the soil and a rifleman that was standing too close suffered necrotic, tissue-eating burns across the forearm.

He’d considered the fact that Hojo might be using the Lifestream.

It was, really, one of the very few ways, combined with genetic engineering, to replicate a creature like the Catoblepas. It made more sense in any case...for a relic from the past to be nothing but a machination. This didn’t detract from the fact that if Hojo was using the Lifestream to bring behemoths back to life...then he would have no issue using the Lifestream to bring other things...more powerful things...back to life. It also meant that Hojo didn’t particularly need Genesis...he just needed his DNA. This _also_ meant that his redheaded friend’s supposition regarding copies was a fairly solid reality. He didn’t know if those copies would be as efficient as the original, but if they had half his skill in swordplay and magic, they would be formidable, and Hojo wouldn’t need hundreds of them to take out what they were bringing in...he might need a dozen...perhaps two dozen.

This was ignoring the fact that they had to get in first.

_’Getting in’_ was a relative terminology because the structure he had caught a mere glimpse of rose out of the waters around them several feet off shore and seemed to possess no entry point. It was half-egg in shape...windowed and multi-leveled, with stilts that lifted it away from the waves and hoisted it up into the sky like a glowing...forbidding phantom hulking in oceanic mists. Angeal did not fail to compare its looming, spotlighted appearance to the nature of what HQ used to be; devoid of greenery, nothing but a powerhouse for those with minds bent less on the good will of the public and more on individual greed. He was somewhat shocked that they weren’t met with combat outright...but in retrospect the lack of it made sense. Hojo did not deal in direct confrontation...he would make it subtle, and he would make it hurt. Without the holographic barrier, the wind from whatever generators the facility used to run were blowing sand, salt, and other sea-related bits of grit into his eyes and the eyes of those around them. It was a situation of feeling entirely dwarfed and nearly helpless...and he supposed that with the ease with which they had accessed it, it was how they were meant to feel.

“Blow it sky high” Zack snarled to his left...blue eyes glittering in the now late-evening light. “I don’t give a shit Angeal, this has gone on too long.”

“Genesis might be in there” the older man replied, not liking the somewhat desperate note that wormed its way into his voice. “We can’t do that.”

**_*”There appears to be a weak point on the Southern end of the structure”*_** Tseng’s voice was somewhat tinny coming from the radio at his hip, but it was clear nevertheless. _***”An access dock, funneled from under the water, if we had gear-”***_

“-You’d only need a basic filtering mask” Zack cut in excitedly. “They sell those in Costa Del Sol, for reef diving.”

“The water’s all silt” Angeal interjected. “Visibility would be poor, and we don’t know what swimming on the surface would do when it comes to enemy surveillance.”

“It’s not all silt.” Cloud’s voice was heavy...and as they turned to look at him, his expression grew heavier still. Decked out in dark fatigues, a long-sleeved shirt, and a kevlar vest with a sword under his arm...the blonde man looked entirely out of his element and nearly defeated. “There” he finally gestured...pointing to the water just underneath the center of the structure. “Look there.”

_There_...or what was there, rather, turned out to be a dim...barely-visible bluish glow. To someone who didn’t know how to identify it, it would have seemed like a reflection from the lights of the structure...bouncing off the water. Indeed, Angeal had initially dismissed it as that very thing...but he could now see it was something else entirely. There had been some talk of farming for underwater mako sources...just before everything went sideways with Genesis and Sephiroth. The Junon reactor, for example, was mostly underwater...if not entirely. At the time, Angeal hadn’t thought it was a bad idea. Underwater sourcing would mean less requirement of surveillance from troops; it was harder to access a reactor under the sea than it was to access one on land. The presence of the structure over what he could only assume was a similarly constructed reactor solidified his suspicions in regards to the use of mako, but it also gave any diver a significant source of light.

“I’ll go,” Angeal said instantly.

“Me too-” Zack interjected, but Angeal cut him off.

“Better for fewer of us to go” the former Commander countered. “If I can get in without being seen, then I’ll have more of a chance of getting Genesis.”

“There’s no way you won’t be seen,” Cloud said flatly. “We’ve already been seen...they’re just waiting to see what we’ll do.”

“Well I’m not going to do _nothing_ ” Angeal replied irritably. “And I’d rather not risk anyone else-”

“-This isn’t just your fight” Zack said impatiently. “You know it’s not...we’re doing this together.” Turning to face the assembly of troops at their disposal, his former trainee raised an eyebrow. “We don’t need all of them, we just need enough that we all have our backs covered.” A pause. “We’re probably limited in regards to supply of filters anyway...but I guarantee you there’s more than one.” When Angeal didn’t reply, he was fixed with a blue-eyed stare he knew-from past experience-was useless to try and reason with. “C’mon, Geal...it’s time to bury the hero. There’s no need for heroes anymore...and what has that whole...crummy mantra regarding sacrifice done for us, really?” A gesture. “Gotten us here?” Zack snorted. “Seems to me like heroes are more trouble than they’re worth.”

Against his will, Angeal felt himself smile...even if it was a bit rueful.

Zack was right...as he was often unwittingly right in situations where others might least expect it from him. And he didn’t have the energy, really, to foist that narrative upon himself anymore. That was what he was doing, really, forcing himself to go to the forefront, because he’d always been shunted there...and he always felt like he had to. All of them...all three of them had felt they had to, when in reality there was as much a need to turn to your men as there was to sit apart and weather fire just to have the world come down atop you because you couldn’t hold it on your own. And he’d always been surprised when it did...when the world came down...but of course it would. The surprise, in that effect, self-sacrifice aside...enhanced physiology aside...when one had men willing to step up to the bar and give as good as they’d gotten, that surprise was not only asinine....it was arrogant.

So it was that a dozen of them donned masks and what amounted to _very poor_ gear that barely kept their weapons dry in order to swim in briny water. Zack, Cloud, and Tseng went with Angeal, along with other carefully selected members of their very questionable battalions. Guided by the dim light of the mako reactor far below...they swam like desperate, seeking apparitions...and they somewhat were. The water was cold and the currents were rough; for those with mako in their veins it wasn’t more trying than a very, very long march, but those without it struggled. Four times, they were forced to halt and silently gesture to wait. It was easy to lose one another as well; twice, Angeal nearly lost sight of those who followed behind in his stubborn determination to forge ahead. They paused often to regroup, using known hand signals to communicate intent.

None of them were ignorant of the fact that they could be caught at any time, though it was debatable if they’d been seen entering the water. Strife had come up with a plan to form a circle of individuals in the shallows so they could duck under the waves and swim through legs to reach the depths without being detected...but he doubted their absence would go unnoticed for long. It was decided that when Genesis was retrieved, they would detonate the place. Angeal was not driven to preserve whatever it was in order to understand it further. He’d done his fair share of investigating...and he knew what Hojo was about...and what Hojo was about deserved no quarter. The weak point Tseng had observed did indeed appear to be reserved for shipping...though what matter of ship travelled underwater he didn’t care to know. The ‘boat hanger’ itself was mostly a glass expanse...quite large, though presently unmanned. Access was no issue with Tseng...thankfully...though it took a while to figure out how to trip the wires on the exterior access panel without flooding it with water and short-circuiting the entire system.

They made it in with no further mishaps...and spent a goodly amount of time using field tactics to gesture before turning every corner, weapons drawn. The whole place was a maze with various apparent uses. Off the ‘boat bay’ there was a series of offices not-unlike the ones at HQ...these continued on for a while before sectioning out into areas emblazoned with labels in regards to lab work and experimental work. The walls, if he were entirely honest, reminded him quite a lot of where Sephiroth had initially been kept after flying back to HQ in his heat...what little Genesis had described of it in any case. It was white-washed and chromatic...high-end and clearly _millions of gils_ to create...but it was empty. Indeed, all of it was empty save for some case files lying here and there of individuals that he didn’t recognize but were clearly nothing but standard employees. With a somewhat sinking feeling, Angeal acknowledged that upon his discovery of the place...he’d given Hojo ample time to run for the hills...and it appeared that was exactly what he had done. He’d cleaned up a large majority of his work before hightailing it as well...leaving them with nothing but a high-end...mako-reliant offense to the environment.

Genesis was nowhere to be seen.

By the time they acknowledged it...Angeal wasn’t surprised but he was disheartened. Tseng disappeared into the security center to disable any feeds outward and then radioed in for backup of the Intelligence kind...which he had a very sneaking suspicion wouldn’t do any good. The facility was scoured from top to bottom...they found holding tanks with mako in them, but nothing else...found labs clearly built for genetic engineering, but with nothing of note in them...not a single petri dish. For a week...they turned the place inside out only to come up with absolutely nothing, and by the time Aerith arrived-which she did, as a representative of the Environmental Committee-they had no news to offer her in regards to her brother. It was only when they were preparing the mako reactor for shutdown and getting ready for above-surface detonation that any news came in at all. Mainly...of a disturbance North of Icicle Inn...near the Sleeping Forest. It wasn’t your typical sort of news...more a radio wave of a hum in the wind, picked up _miles_ beyond where any radio would have been capable of picking anything up...ferried back to HQ...where someone was smart enough to pay attention and record it.

It was Genesis’ voice...but it was not his voice. It was, in effect, two voices overlapping; one almost sickeningly melodic, and the other that of his friend...breathless and desperate;

_”Are you sure you want to go in there...just to risk it all again?”_

_“I have to...I have to...if it’s him, I **have** to.” _

_“Hmm...I wonder, would your daughter feel the same way?”_

_“You know...you know full well what I’m going to choose...I have to.”_

_**"...If it’s Sephiroth, I have to.”** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** This chapter feels very weird. Want to make a shmall note that the way the plot is going at this point is pretty non-canon. Think this whole fic series has been _pretty_ non canon, Seph bearing childrens of himself aside ಠ_ಠ Uh, so wild plot deviations, I does them. But, _in_ my wildly veering plot deviations sometimes I wildly veer from my wildly veering and veer into bad plot trajectory. I, for example, have still not corrected myself regarding Angeal's girthy [and destroyed, r.i.p.] sword. Just know that if there are mistakes, I will get to them just not always right away due to time constraints and a rule I have regarding how much I use the internet on any given day. sometimes I adhere strictly to canon/lore aspects, but sometimes I don’t; but I would like to think that this fic made it fairly clear I was not going to do that straight out the gate. Thanks for reading. Am not entirely sure if I'm going to get back to this again soon, but I'll try.


	16. Chapter 16

The terminology of equilibrium had never held greater truth for him.

When he was aware of truth and terminologies that is, sometimes that varied significantly. The concept of variance was deceiving, because nothing about his existence particularly changed. It was a floating...spun out thing; a concept drifting into semi-interpreted firmament. The overall lack of sense of self wasn’t as pernicious as it had been before, but it was still existent. Sometimes, it occurred to him-in a manner rather wry-that he had never had a very individual sense of self. _Why_ he thought that was a harder picture to pull together in the psychic puzzle that was his splintered sense of being. Some very stubborn part of himself insisted that this was what he had chosen, against some other choice, but he couldn’t remember that choice or why he’d made it. Only vaguely...he was given the distinct nuance of impression that it had been the right decision...carefully calculated even if it left him with an aching sense of grief and emptiness that made very little sense itself. The world was green and blue...sometimes it was bright and gold...but it was not the world...it was of the world.

_He_ was of the world.

At times...he was given a distinct sense of otherness; not in him, but about him. Briefly, he would catch snippets of color, perhaps of recollection, that were not his. A field he was sure he’d never been in...an ocean he had never crossed...a mountaintop he had never bothered to climb. Sometimes such others came with snapshots of a smile he did not know...some very young, some old and wrinkled but tender. It was harder to name them for what they were, even if they were ghosts much like he was. The longer he remained in the constant flow of the living essence that was everything and nothing...the less common it became for him to acknowledge such things. All of it was directionless, though not pointless. Through it, there was a distinct sensation of purpose...of being and yet unbeing. It was not unfamiliar...and he knew that he had managed to pull himself out before...but _before_ was so long ago...or so it seemed. Before was a wink of eyes like his...a flash of scarlet hair and the sour taste of terror...both his...and hers.

At some point the fabric of it all changed.

Not to any great degree, but enough for him to take notice. Something in him that was not him was distinctly aware of a sensation of depletion. The ‘others’ murmured that it was not so great as before, but he couldn’t quite grasp what they were talking about. Such depletion, if comparable to something non-ephemeral...was like a slow bleed in the recesses of his awareness...like a missing thought that had never been his to think in the first place. A duty-oriented facet of his psyche whispered that he ought to do something about it, but he didn’t know what that would be. It was impossible, really, to ‘act’ in a manner physical in his current state...existing, and barely, at that, was the only feasible way forward. Still, the sense of reduction remained...a spherical yet contorted, downsloped and spiraling thing. Eventually such spiraling wed itself to a bending, tainted blackness...a necrotic stain that niggled at him as if he might know what it was...if he could recall it. Something on skin...something like bruised fruit and torrential grief. Almost instinctively, whatever was left of him shied away from it...rejected such psychological reminders to that which was living.

He shied away...until he couldn’t anymore.

If he could compare it to anything...it was rather like being outside of himself...in a sense of Oneness with the others. The longer the feeling pervaded, the more he felt tugged into himself...like a kite to a tether...free to the wind until the breeze grew still and he crashed to the sand once more. It was a significantly comparable sensation; the minute-perhaps the fractional iota of time-that he became aware he was something _other_ than the others...the sensation of weightlessness was ripped from him. Describing the nuances of psychic collapse was nearly impossible...it was worse than falling off a building...worse because instead of falling through empty space he was falling inevitably towards a bright, coagulant vortex of recollection and with each memory that slipped back into place...the more resistant he was to the free fall. It wasn’t gentle, as it had somewhat been in times prior...it was a howling, semi-disassociated funnel of psychological remembrance and each recollective picture that beat itself into his hippocampus was a burning threshold of anamnesis.

Illuminated...perhaps too illuminated; halogen flooding the dark recesses of a previously-vacant room, save the room was in the self and not the sight. Cobwebs gathered in metaphorical cranial corners dissipated like so much dust, and the only thing he could think was _why now_? Indeed, why now? What _possibly_ could the world demand from him that he hadn’t already given, what could he possibly offer that had not already been sacrificed...often to his own detriment and the detriment of those close to him? And it wasn’t a sense of being in the ability to move, the ability to have a body, or the ability to be at present...but a sense of being that gave him only who he was...what he had done, and an echoing...soundless chamber in which to acknowledge it. The impression was too much like his youth...too much like a cage for him to assimilate to it without a distinct feeling of being unsettled and hypervigilant. Unlike his mind, which solidified fairly quickly, the blackness all about him did not settle...it merely remained.

And there _he_ remained.

How long he was there was impossible to calculate. It hadn’t occurred to him, before, that being in the Lifestream was rather like a hive mind in the sense that he was never alone. He’d never garnered any sort of comfort from those that were there...not a solid, personified sense of comfort...no one was cogent enough for that. But there was still the singular facet of intermingled existence that was comparable to nothing he had felt before. He didn’t miss it in the emotional sense, rather, he missed it in the habituated sense. There were other things he missed...of course...but that all-encompassing, inescapable psychic coalescence was a thing of empty, non-sentimental obligation. It felt more need than want...even if it was, realistically, neither. Still...he grew accustomed to it, as one is prone to becoming accustomed to things inescapable and constant. He had learned to accept far worse things far younger; this, too, he could weather...even if he weathered it for the rest of eternity.

That, however, was not to be.

It wasn’t...because within that darkness came a sense of purpose. At first it was vague...an idea, really...though it was neither clear nor immediately before him. It seemed to come at a distance...like something that had traversed over a wavelength to burst on his mental eardrums, much akin to a distorted radio frequency. Over time, it took a greater shape...mapped itself against his synaptic canvas until it was a creation in full color...a concept in greater formation than a simplistic ideal. Driven...it was driven, though not just in a sense of duty, but in a sense of urgent protectiveness. It was also driven by a darker...somewhat insidious desire for restitution; and not just for himself, but for those he had chosen to surround himself with only to have them dragged down with him. It was driven by memories of a cold lab...of a persistent...icy glare...of merciless torture and the flash of madness behind spectacles. There was a laugh...high and cold...a musical ripple in the water that sang that his body was a mere _‘hop, skip, and a jump’_ away. That was not his voice...but another...and he didn’t entirely trust it, but he sensed no lie in terms of his physicality...and there was still his sense of purpose.

Hojo was still alive.

He was _still alive_ , and by proxy, still free to torment those who didn’t deserve it. And how long had he stayed his hand when it came to the man who had brutalized him...both as a child, and as an adult? How long had he _bent_...until he could not bend anymore and so he had forced himself to crawl? These things the sense of purpose whispered...these things...it hummed into his psychic recesses until it felt like every vein was suffused and boiling hot with indignation, terrible regret, and all-encompassing grief. It tugged at him...a bit like a fish on a line...slack and loose...slack and loose...further the gap then lesser. The darkness around him faltered...but only at a pinpoint...a fold in the fabric of his ever-blind state of existence and it was then he found that he could move with _purpose_...and of course he did. He bit down on that hook-teeth and all-and drove forward relentlessly...tied to the shackles of sightless desperation and a suffusing, violent rage. Again, the world contorted...if one could even call it a world. Again the fabric of his state of being was thrown into a starlit...sweeping freefall that was _cold_ and the trees were luminescent...ethereal things glowing like white fire.

_Like an age-old hunger...like the whites of eyes around blue irises._

So it was that Sephiroth found himself plunged back into a body that barely knew how to move...in the depths of a glittering pool in the hollow of a shell deep in the Sleeping Forest.

* * *

Like glass shattering.

The frigid...Arctic nature of an aqueous vault back into reality was like glass shattering...like the sting of a needle and everything _jerked_ -hard and fast-and he couldn’t _breathe_ -fingers curling in shock-but he _had to move_ ‘lest he drown and the air at the surface...that great, first lungful of breathing air was the clawing of wintertide...deep into the lober bronchi. He sensed...without sensing it really, that someone of a common physiology would have succumbed at this point...but he was not of the common physiology in many ways...and so he didn’t. He didn’t, but it still took a considerable effort to crawl his way out of the pool...to accustom himself physiologically to _having_ a physiology once more. There were times in the past, when his consciousness had felt mostly separate from his body...where he’d learned to distance himself from sensation in order to survive. This, however, was entirely different. He had spent so long ‘away’ from himself, that it was a bit like existing in the body of a stranger. The knowledge that he had lungs with which to breathe...eyes with which to see...it was entirely foreign. And he could _hear_ himself inhale and exhale...feel the rush of air past his lips even as he struggled to remember how to move his legs...how to position himself to rise.

Through it all...the sense of purpose was a blinding, almost red-wrung thing.

It was...in the end, the only thing that got him off his knees so he could stagger down a labyrinth of vaulting...naturally formed passageways. Somewhat vaguely, he could acknowledge that he knew of the place historically; the City of Ancients. By his knowledge, no one had ever been there that had made it out to tell the tale. He didn’t, however, sense any imminent threat of the supernatural kind. If he was entirely forthcoming, the entirety of the place felt long-abandoned...though still somehow alive. _How_ , exactly, he didn’t know...only that when he leaned against curved and somewhat rough walls he could _feel_ the essence of the place...like a string plucked and then left to vibrate. It was unsettling, but not alarming...certainly not alarming as the high-pitched, cold laughter that ricocheted in from outside. And he didn’t know _why_ Hojo would be there...why he was so conveniently placed where he had managed to find his way back to himself. None of it made sense, but the mantra that had tattooed itself across his psyche remained. Even as he staggered his way out of the shell...as he leaned heavily on the convex...sweeping alabaster of the entryway...it remained.

It occurred to him that he was naked.

Not that it mattered very much, but he had-by his recollection-never killed anyone without the presence of some form of garment before. Not that it mattered; glaring across the very sparse and shallow amount of water surrounding his point of resurrection, Sephiroth concluded that it did not matter at all, he could still kill Hojo with his bare hands. And the shape across the way was familiar...the ramrod-straight physique...the forbidding stature that brought a wash of both nausea and hatred whiplashing down his throat to fall leaden in his stomach. Something in him whispered that it was off...but he was too driven...too focused to do more than brush it away. One step, one step and then two, and his legs gave out enough that he had to clutch at the walls again. The shape wavered but the voice in it grew almost rudely insistent in its agency. Breathing harshly, neck bowed to catch his breath, the silver-haired man paused before shaking his head...almost as if to rid it of water.

_’Sephiroth…’_ He recognized the voice. He did...though vaguely. With it came the memories of a church in the slums...of an auburn braid and a patch of flowers. _’Sephiroth...remember to look with your eyes and not your mind.’_

He didn’t understand.

He didn’t, but as the last whispers of the gentle, almost wind-like supplication, the distinction between the voice being someone-some _thing_ -else and not of himself became apparent once more...as it had been apparent before he returned to himself. Panic rose in him, almost automatically, but just as quickly it subsided. Whatever it was...it wasn’t Jenova. Jenova was one of the first adverse things he had noted the absence of upon reawakening. She was not there...and he did not miss her. Whatever this was, it wasn’t as powerful as she had been; a simple mental shove sent it reeling and he had spent enough time sequestered solely to his psyche that when that first initial shove was successful...his next move was to _hurl_ it from his mind. And hurl it did...though it put up a good-however unsuccessful-attempt to combat its dislodging. Like a black shadow...it vacated the corners of his psyche...and with it went the somewhat vague illusion of Hojo across the water. It was replaced with nothing. Nothing but the howl of an Arctic wind...and the strange, unearthly static that came from the trees.

That...and the sound of footsteps.

They were slow; still leaning on the wall of what-he assumed- _must_ be the Forgotten City, he acknowledged that whoever it was was tired. There was an acoustic impression of drag to every foot put forward...a weariness in the tread. Bracing himself, Sephiroth pushed away from the wall to stand in the midst of the entryway, throwing a stray strand of sodden hair over his shoulder in an irritable manner as he did so. Somewhat cantankerously, he acknowledged that if he had to deal with any more insurgents-whether on his psyche or his person-he might not make it alive out of the Forest in his current state. He was durable, but he was not impermeable.

Such thoughts...of course, immediately flew from his mind when a mess of red hair made itself apparent over the tall...imposing rise that led down into the City.

Really, such thoughts fled from his mind hypothetically never to return when Genesis crested the hill and began a slow trek downwards. Somewhat frozen and _completely_ thrown off-guard by the entirety of it...the former General could only somewhat vaguely acknowledge that he looked thinner than he remembered...but no older. Almost immediately, his mind jumped to suspicion before remembering the Jenova cells-now latent, or so he presumed-and what they did to the aging process. The individual in question didn’t appear to have noticed him yet. Instead, his former comrade lifted familiar sapphire eyes to the massive structure behind him and he acknowledged that there was a coldness to them that he did not remember seeing before...a despair that he didn’t like...a hardness he didn’t like. It struck him perhaps more strange that he’d chosen to come alone. Whatever the older man had been hoping to find...he clearly hadn’t found it...and more than likely hadn’t expected to in the first place.

Still flawless.

In more ways than that which encompassed the physical, of course; Genesis held a light in him unparalleled by anything...whether it be that of the stars or the glowing, shimmering essence of the Lifestream. It was in the way he carried himself...not necessarily with bravado, but with a determinedness of focus...a surety that matched the fire in his spirit...even if that fire felt somewhat dimmed at this point. The redhead came to a halt at the water’s edge and Sephiroth shifted thoughtlessly...craned his neck a bit without putting a great amount of thought into it. Bare feet slid against a slightly damp, wet surface, and cerulean irises snapped to attention...and then immediately zeroed in on him. Those eyes widened, and not in a manner he was accustomed to. Really, they widened and then shut so tightly it made Sephiroth wince, even from where he was standing. Genesis made a low, pained noise and it was only when he looked like his knees might give out from under him that the former General found the courage to move again.

It was a sinking thing.

Almost graceful...really, though he was sure that the emotions behind it were anything but graceful, if the tumult he was feeling wasn’t too much different. Genesis didn’t hit the dirt entirely...he stopped about halfway there with his hands on his knees...but it was a slow-falling, incoherent disbelief that was mirrored in every inch of his posture. The water between them was shallow...though no less cold. Wading through it and feeling exorbitantly cumbersome, Sephiroth made a slow but steady path forward until a gloved hand shot out and gestured for him to stop; palm towards him.

_”Don’t.”_

It was hard to stop.

Mostly because the nearer they were to one another, the more cogent he was of how long it had been since he’d been near to the man before him. And it wasn’t a fickle...errant thing. It was a deep, almost painful sensation of a totality of loss now culminated into _this_. Still, he waited. Minutes passed, their only company the cold...barely-visible stars winking in the sky above them. It wasn’t long after that that Sephiroth acknowledged that Genesis was shaking. Not in the sense that he was trying to hide it, but in the sense that he was trying to prevent what appeared to be a colossal breakdown. And it hurt...in the way that something long lost but deeply valued brought together in abruptness hurts. The hand holding the younger man back was lowered-clutched into a fist atop a thigh-and this time he did not ease his pace. Instead, he closed the gap between them in several long strides, and by that time Genesis’ was upright once more. He was upright, but he was so pale he might as well have been translucent.

And those blue eyes were burning into him...searing a hole straight through him as if somehow they could discern the validity of his existence merely by looking hard enough. Face to face, his hands hanging loosely at his sides, Sephiroth opened his mouth.

“Genesis...”

The man in question exhaled shakily, in a long rush. Swallowing, the redhead averted his gaze...cast it to the side and his expression was a thing torn between _terrible_ grief and pain, and a kind of _fury_ that he’d never witnessed in him before.

“Do you-” the scarlet-haired former Soldier cut himself off and appeared to struggle monumentally. “Do you fucking _know_ -” another silence, equally as sudden. When Genesis spoke again, it was accompanied with a rather forceful push. “You utter-!” his voice cracked, and a gloved hand ran through crimson locks before clenching as the older man blinked rapidly in an unsuccessful attempt to clear glazed eyes. _”Sephiroth-”_

“-I’m sorry” the aforementioned man replied. “Genesis, I am _sorry_.”

_”I don’t **care** if you’re sorry!”_ was the hysterically yelped response. “I don’t _care_!” A deep, gulping breath and the trembling had returned. “I don’t! I-” An insufflated breath that turned into the hiccough of a sob. “ _Seph_ , I _can’t_ -”

And that was the extent of Genesis’ ability to keep himself together. It was, really, only Sephiroth’s reflexes that kept him from hitting the dirt _hard_ , and the physical lash-out when he grasped the older man’s forearms was not just expected, it was-in his opinion-deserved. Thrice, those fists thumped at his chest-though not with any great amount of purpose or direction-before they opened and grasped him back hard enough to bruise; clutched his biceps and dug in-nails and all-and that scarlet head came to rest on his shoulder was not a welcome nor was it a rejection. Genesis rocked...once...twice, in a manner that seemed to be a futile attempt to self soothe.

“I can’t,” was the unhinged wheeze into his shoulder. _“I can’t anymore-!”_

A full-body shudder and Sephiroth let one of his hands rise to thread through crimson hair.

“You don’t have to,” he said hoarsely.

He didn’t know if that was what he’d been waiting to hear...the _idea_ that it was what he’d been waiting to hear for so long made him sick at heart. Sephiroth didn’t know if he’d been waiting for him to give him _permission_. He was only aware of the fact that when the words left his lips there was a deafening silence. A silence broken only by the harsh, still-trying-for-restraint-oriented breaths against his bare shoulder. There was silence...and then Genesis’ physicality seemed to contort before the howl that left his lips echoed across every recess of the city behind them. The shell at their flank-the city in of itself-split straight down the middle with a deafening crack and somewhere...Sephiroth could feel Saoirse...even if she wasn't aware of him...but for the moment his focus was only there...in that moment between the two of them. Thunder rolled in the distance even as the clouds were illuminated by lightning...pale fingers grasped at him like he was the only solid thing in the world...

...and rain fell from the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** some things here that won't make sense [and some things prior], that will be cleared up in the next chapter or two. I'll confess here that finishing this story, and I do intend to finish it, is in the top ten hardest things I've ever done, so if my quality is off, please know that even if I waited several years to complete this, I don't know if you'd get the same level of articulation that you got before. I appreciate the readership, however. 
> 
> Yes I did a 'Birth of Venus' thing with Seph. Because he's fabulous that's why. Look I did a Lady Godiva thing with him in Miasma, I'm very bad but I'm not very sorry for this. The wiki Forgotten City thing made it too difficult to resist. *


	17. Chapter 17

It wasn’t as simple as walking into the Forbidden City and finding Sephiroth.

That much, Genesis figured, should have been obvious. Sitting numbly in the back of a pickup truck bound for Midgar, the redhead acknowledged the fact that he was in shock before his brain slid down a disassociated, cotton-inundated drain once more. In truth, his ability to recollect exactly what had happened post his disappearance from the beach near Costa Del Sol was hazy. He could recall feeling like he’d gotten run over by a truck and then he’d been somewhere else.

 _Where_ , exactly, was unclear, only that he didn’t remember it being in the least bit pleasant, or the least bit comforting or calming. Not due to any identifiers that would have seemed obvious to your average passerby, but due to identifiers in the sense of feeling out of place, discomfited and uncomfortable. Genesis was versed in magic, but teleportation was something else entirely. And it wasn’t _teleportation_ , not really, because he’d still been _aware_ enough to acknowledge his place in the world even if that place had no solid parameters via the time-space continuum. It was a _massive_ amount of spatial perception rushing by at an inhumane rate; like being thrown into some sort of warped and very fucked up tunnel and then being spat out the other side reeling.

So, _of course_ it felt wrong.

Being on what felt like an insane space-trip to the other side of a planet was going to feel wrong. He didn’t care who it was or what was doing it, things did not happen that fast. He might have been able to be sincerely offended if he hadn’t been busy trying not to splatter what little he’d eaten that day over the ground in front of him. It was also impossible to say whether it was the same day or the same year or even the same _decade_...not immediately in any case. He would have been sincerely surprised if anyone who had just been footballed into the cosmos was able to say what day it was when they arrived post ’merry’-joyride.

He had other caveats...of course, the fact that he was ‘teleported’ outside the Sleeping Forest was one of them. Mostly because his memories of the forest involved Sephiroth and he had done enough reliving his relationship with Sephiroth to last him several lifetimes, if not several dozen lifetimes. Said individual was sitting opposite him in the pickup truck pretending not to look at him and failing rather spectacularly. If Genesis was not so traumatized and so fucked up he could barely see straight he might have thought it was cute; but he was all of those things and more so he only found it mildly endearing in a very out-of-body sort of way. Like some other not-fried part of him was thinking his dead-but-not-dead partner was adorable but it was not computing correctly.

None of that-of course-explained his decision to go _into_ the Sleeping Forest.

Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes as tightly as they would go, Genesis acknowledged that he didn’t fully understand the decision himself. He could only say that when he’d...arrived, he’d been driven-almost via compulsion-to _go_. It wasn’t at all unlike when he and Sephiroth had taken the mission there...so long ago, and nearly had their asses handed to them by Hojo’s very strange Necromancer experiment. He was beginning, really, to question if it was an experiment at all...or if it was, if it wasn’t still active. The idea that they were merely playing into the hands of a mechanism outside of their control was disturbing. The parallels, however, were impossible to ignore. There was the return to the forest...the presence of Thierry, who had, of course, appeared in front of him in a cloud of black, prismatic dust. If he’d had any sense, he might have just killed him on sight.

There was no guarantee, however, that that would have killed him.

Genesis had a niggling suspicion that it wasn’t so much-once again- _who_ Thierry was, but _what_...and more and more his mind was turning towards the Jenova cells. He didn’t know _why_ , only that somehow Thierry felt like them...felt like that compulsion he’d had in the briefest of moments before Sephiroth’s death to merely give in to the desire to destroy...to poison it all. He was inveigling in ways not dissimilar to Sephiroth...but Sephiroth’s aura was genetic...Thierry’s felt predatory; and _more_ than predatory, it felt insatiable. In the sense that no matter what ‘he’ received in terms of...well, _anything_ , it would never be enough.

How the cells would take on a personified form was another matter entirely.

The former Commander could only assume that it had to have something to do with whatever Hojo had been planning in regards to cloning. He might-the redhead reasoned-have discovered a way to merge the cells and the cloning process into something entirely different. How he could have done that, he didn’t know. The Nibel reactor was destroyed. It was, realistically, so thoroughly destroyed that it was rather like it had never existed. Whatever remained of Jenova had also been eliminated...but there was a difference between the rhetorical ‘vessel’ that was the representation of her and her actual ‘being’, which was not necessarily so much an individual with morals but an eradicator. Genesis was rather prone to think of Jenova as a virophage but with an extremity indicator turned all the way up to _’everyone is a virus but me. Oh and I’m sentient and shit_.’

The idea that the cells were still present was disheartening but still a reality he had to face. That reality was also indicative of the fact that the cells needed to be eliminated...no matter the cost.

Going into the forest was like going into a mirage.

It was, really, like sliding under the multi-hued, semi-illusion-esque surface of a soap bubble. The minute he was in...the outside world felt ethereal. Genesis had, at that point, only known that his purpose was to find Sephiroth. And something was _wrong_ about that purpose...because it felt a bit like walking into a trap. Certainly...when he was descending the slope into the Forgotten City it felt like a trap...but that feeling had bled away. Really, it had almost felt _chased_ away, and when he’d found himself standing opposite the incredibly large shell-structure of the city with Sephiroth staring at him from across the water...it was like being hit with a ton of bricks.

It was _total exhaustion_ in a form he had never known and hoped that he would never have to face again.

Vincent had gotten to them first.

Really, Vincent had found them when they stumbled out of the forest days later...feet away from one another and so exhausted neither could see straight. Angeal and Zack weren’t far behind but Genesis had practically fallen over sideways begging his childhood friend to leave them be, at least for now. There was gawking and muttering and talk spreading and the only thing he wanted was to _get away_ from it. He wanted to go _home_ and he wanted to see Saoirse. He wanted to go somewhere where he and Sephiroth could sit, alone, and try to understand one another in their current state of being. They’d barely talked traversing the forest...only enough to communicate direction and it was all habituated...all a sort of twisted, fucked up echolocation of field lingo from the past. Neither stopped to rest save to eat; and ‘eating’ consisted of who-knew-how-old rations Genesis had squirreled away for the ‘trip to the beach’. They tasted like they’d come during the holiday season ten years ago. Round… _very_ stale biscuits, essentially, with insides inundated with spices like ginger and nutmeg and high in calorie. When Sephiroth bit into one he shouldered the _’I know what this is and I hate it, but I have to eat it to live’_ look most Soldiers did after months in the field.

Other than that, they never slowed down save to check their six. Twice...they were both given the distinct impression of being pursued and it was a bizarre fear that drove them forward until they were haggard with it.

And that was what had led them there.

There, to the back of the truck...with the skies winking above them and Vincent driving silently in the cab. They had been very briefly introduced...in the way that one could introduce a potential-resurrected-son to a potential-zombified-father, anyway; it wasn’t peaceful...it was _anything_ but peaceful. There were times when Sephiroth’s presence alone made him feel as if he was on the verge of having a panic attack, but it was better than being in the forest. They’d made it across the Northern Continent in good time, but they’d agreed to stop when they were near to Kalm. Going into town would only cause a ruckus, and Vincent had proposed they pitch tents in order to keep things as low-profile as possible for as long as possible. Sephiroth was hated by the public, and the less the general population knew the better. As long as Angeal, Tseng, and Zack didn’t talk, no one needed to know...for the moment.

Sephiroth was still clothesless.

In a fit of voracious-and slightly desperate-humor, Genesis supposed that he was still dicking about-pun not intended-because everyone they had run into so far had been so damn shocked to see the silver-haired man in the first place. Nobody was surprised that Sephiroth was naked because they were too busy being surprised that he was _alive_. Squinting at the younger man like he was a particularly fascinating curio shop item, Genesis somewhat dryly acknowledged that maybe it was the hair. The former General possessed so much of it he really didn’t need anything else to appear decent. _’Decent’_ of course meaning that his junk was covered and if he didn’t move too quickly he didn’t even have to worry about a nip slip. Such shoddy terms, shoddy on a level _grandiose_ , would have made said individual turn up his nose in disgust but it was there and Genesis was not exactly highfalutin. He had-in fact-made it a point to make himself about _as far from highfalutin_ as possible; if he wanted to use the term _’nip slip’_ then Gaia help the asshole who told him otherwise.

He could acknowledge his dysregulation without acting on it.

Mostly because acting on it would have involved screaming at the top of his lungs for who knew how long. Despite the fact that his self-restraint was paper-thin he was not quite so far gone that he couldn’t acknowledge the futility of doing so. Genesis- _Genesis_ told himself firmly-could lose his shit completely later. Somewhere private. For now, Vincent was signaling that he was going to pull over, and it was with a sincere feeling of relief that the redhead hopped down from the bed of the truck in order to step onto springy grass where there used to be endless waste just outside of Kalm. From where he was standing, he could just-barely see the softly winking lights of the town over a small rise.

“It’s changed.”

Sephiroth’s voice was wonderingly innocent-despite its deepness-and for a brief, hysterical moment Genesis nearly _hated_ him for it.

“No Zoloms here” the scarlet-haired man snapped before catching himself and moving away several meters to give himself some space.

“I heard about his degradation” Vincent murmured, too low for human ears to hear, but _certainly_ loud enough for mako-enhanced ears to hear. “He’s...not been exactly tolerable now. If it was anything like it is now, I don’t know how you do it...how you did it.”

Sephiroth made-if possible-the fastest turnabout that Genesis had ever seen him perform.

It was so fast that he wasn’t entirely able to track it; a bit of it was just a moonlit, naked blur. And _naked_ did not detract from the fact that when the former General grasped Vincent by the shoulder and proceeded to tower over him like a silver-haired, green-eyed mirage he was no less foreboding and no less terrifying. It was not-until that very moment-apparent that Sephiroth was still the genetically mutated, gorgeous ball of neurosis he had always been.

“I did it-” was the phrase spoken through clenched teeth. “-Because that’s what you _do_ for people you love.”

“I didn’t mean-” Vincent began, but he was cut off.

“-I don’t care what you meant.” Sephiroth’s voice was as cold as ice. “It was poorly spoken, insensitive, and judgmental.” A pause. “There are… _many_ things that must be understood...things that have to be worked out and comprehended. But what I will _never_ do is take for granted what I have been given, and what I have the opportunity to change.” Another silence...longer this time, and when the younger man spoke again, his voice was toneless. “If you weren’t potentially my daughter’s grandfather, this would be the last time we would speak to one another. I am not a forgiving man.”

Vincent could be callous, but he wasn’t entirely ignorant.

He wasn’t, and so when he merely tilted his head slightly in acquiescence and stepped back, Genesis gave him some amount of perps for the ability to acknowledge when he’d been called out on his bullshit. Looking elsewhere and swallowing, Genesis silently tucked away the thought that it wasn’t _entirely_ bullshit. He’d been out of line for a very long time, and the excuse of trauma could really only get him so far. Sephiroth was defending him...maybe out of affection...maybe merely out of a sense of duty...he couldn’t really say. As Valentine turned around to head back to the truck-presumably to get out their supplies for the night-Sephiroth turned to him.

It was so strange to look at him again.

Not due to his nakedness...or, even-with levity aside-his lack of clothes. No...it was something more personal than that...some inherently, deeply scarred part of himself insisted that it wasn’t real. As a familiar, warm palm moved a lock of hair away from his eyes...it still didn’t feel real.

“Genesis…”

Pursing his lips and then letting them thin out, the aforementioned man acknowledged that maybe that was the problem. They had never felt real; all of it was something-when Shinra was in power and hunting them...and then before that when they were enlisted-stuck on the vibrating, energy-inundated ledge of catastrophe. Always...they were _always_ running from the next threat and in this space...this new space, he didn’t know who they were and perhaps he had never known. Something hit the ground next to Sephiroth and they both startled like deer before settling enough to acknowledge that it was just a spare pair of pants, a shirt, some socks, and boots. Nondescript and obsolete and yet the presence of them was enough to make his silver-haired companion flush to the roots of his hair...as if he’d forgotten the necessity of them until that very moment.

“I can’t talk to you right now” Genesis said hoarsely even as Sephiroth bent and began to pull on the pants. Vincent had walked back to the truck to pull down the supplies necessary to pitch the tents, his focus clearly elsewhere. “I know we need to” the redhead continued, ignoring how his voice shook. “But I’m not thinking clearly enough to do so.”

He watched in a somewhat detached manner as the former General finished dressing, sliding the boots on in a clumsy, unaccustomed sort of manner before fixing him with those achingly green eyes.

“...Is there anything I can do?”

Familiar.

Familiar...and yet, somehow not...the way it was spoken. The baritone of Sephiroth’s voice didn’t carry far, but the undertone of uncertainty, of a kind of desperate vulnerability-however well-hidden-did. And it was so bizarre...to look upon that face...framed by midnight...by stars that had constantly reminded him of that hair...of the way it caught the light...of the way it haloed his visage. There was a part of him that just wanted to _touch_ him, in a grounding way, but there was another equally large part of himself that was so cloistered...so cemented in his almost-chronic fear of connection that he couldn’t. If he touched him-that part of him reasoned-he would shatter into a million pieces and get blown away with the wind. It was an irrational thought, but it was the most forefront one.

And so it was that he only observed as Sephiroth slowly but smoothly lowered himself to the grass in a cross-legged position. Genesis watched as the younger man settled and then beckoned for him to join him. He did, but it was a mechanical action; it felt mechanical, in any case. The ground was soft beneath him...but such softness was neither anchoring nor was it solace.

“When I last saw you” Sephiroth began quietly, and Genesis stiffened. It appeared that the silver-haired former First might speak, but instead he paused and shook his head. “I’m not going to pretend to be capable of putting myself in your position,” was the slow continuation. “To do so would be foolish and shortsighted of me.” A hand reached out and took his; lifted the older man’s palm and lay it flat-facing downwards-atop his companion’s before curling in to lace their fingers together. Genesis deflected- _re_ jected, really-the sensation of solace that flooded him with that simple physical connection; he didn’t trust it...not anymore. “I am sorry Genesis” was the somewhat lost conclusion. “I had no right asking what I asked of you.”

“See” the redhead muttered numbly. “You say you’re not going to pretend you know what I’m about, but you’re still _talking_ like you do.” He laughed and it felt empty...but he didn’t feel quite so _empty_ as he had before. “I don’t need you to explain shit, Seph. I lived this, I know what it was. You were…” a vague wave of the hand. “Some sort of weird flotsam in the Lifestream.”

Another silence and Vincent came back not with tents but with sleeping bags. They were each handed one, and red eyes looked between them like there was more that the gunslinger would have liked to have said, but a glance from Sephiroth had him retreating in order to set up his sleeping space further away.

“That’s your Dad, maybe, y’know” Genesis muttered at the ground. “You shouldn’t treat him like shit just because he’s a bit salty over me being a drunk, explosive asshole. I’m not entirely worth defending, you’ve just not been around enough to see _why_.” A crack...in the foundations of his emotional exterior and the scarlet-haired former First felt his shoulders shiver...just slightly, even as his throat grew somewhat tight. A thumb stroked over his knuckles and he wanted to _bury_ himself in it, but he was too frightened of _losing_ it. “You sh-shouldn’t-” he stammered before his throat closed up entirely and he had to duck his head. _”-Shit.”_

“I’ll reiterate my prior statement” Sephiroth said with all the fanfare of a secretary. “You don’t have to do this anymore, Genesis.” Another stroke. “This...isn’t the you I remember when you’re...overwrought.”

Against his will, the blue-eyed man chuckled, even if it was sardonic, somewhat angry sort of chuckling.

“Seph,” he choked out. “If I display my level of _overwrought_ at this current moment, I think I could successfully burn down all of Midgar and a generous portion of Junon.” Genesis’ palm was brought up to his companion’s mouth and he unconsciously cupped it in a habitual gesture so that Sephiroth could lean into it...breath against his lifeline. “You’re giving me a great angle to knock your lights out.” He felt, rather than saw the smile against his skin and he shook his hand in a gesture that was about as threatening as a newborn chocobo. “I mean it.”

“I’d deserve it.”

“Yes, you would, you ridiculous-” he broke off and took a deep breath as those green eyes shut...slowly, like a cat’s, in an expression of unfairly handsome bliss. “Aren’t you gonna ask about Saoirse?”

At this, Sephiroth seemed to sober a bit, enough that he lifted his head and looked directly at Genesis.

“Do you wish to?” he asked quietly. A pause, and again that uncertainty was creeping into emerald irises. “I didn’t want to push you.”

“I am beyond _’pushed’_ ” Genesis replied sarcastically. “Consider me _flattened._ ” When his companion still looked uncertain, he relented. “Maybe tomorrow then, yeah?”

“And tonight?” was the low query.

Taking a deep breath, the older man bowed his head before echoing the gesture Sephiroth had performed moments before; mouth against lifeline...breathing it in.

“Just this” he said quietly. “I don’t...I don’t know how to do this quickly anymore, Seph.” He laughed, and it was painful and thick. “I’ve had _no one_ ” a sharp intake of breath and he amended his statement. “Flings here and there, nothing fucking serious. I just-” Another pause. “I’ve learned,” Genesis said tightly. “To be afraid of it.” When he realized that the silver-haired former First might not know what he meant, he lifted his free hand to place it over his chest. “Of _this_. And it kills me to admit that, to admit that cowardice-”

“-It’s not cowardice,” Sephiroth interrupted. When the older man scoffed he shook his head. “It’s not. When...when Hojo did the things he did...I learned to expect that from all those I surrounded myself with, whether by choice or otherwise.” A gentle shake of the hand cupped partially at his chin and Genesis met his gaze. “You taught me otherwise, and the idea that I have taught you what you taught me to disregard…” A pause, and for a moment the former General looked so distraught that he could almost feel the resonant emotion. “I _deserve_ to be sorry, Genesis. Because what I did to you was sorry.”

“You were afraid too” the aforementioned man murmured. “Of what you were becoming.”

“It’s not an excuse.”

“It’s not” Genesis agreed. “But I get it.” Inhaling once more, he shook his head. “I just need you here, as you are, for now. We have...so much we have to work through, but I don’t have the energy for it.”

“...For now...and _just_ for now, it’s enough to know you’re alive...and here”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** I know I said I would explain some things in this chapter but I just gave them some more bonding time and went over Gen's side so now I have more to explain, which is great! 
> 
> Yeah I sort of ripped off Pfeffernüsse, they're cute [they are, I will fight you] and this was a chapter that was a lot of _'hoy, can-I-see-the-screen-staggering-through-this-paragraph-plz'_. I'm a madman who eats Pfeffernüsse and I have a smol depression, what do you want. Kids, when you are my age, you will not care what form they come in, a cookie is a cookie is a cookie is a ration if I make it one in a fanfic. But no, Pfeffernüsse are not stale, they are glorious. Do not make me come out there and bake. I will roll that dough so hard the curtains will fall down. Alright that's enough. I liked the song 'Human' by Christina Perri for this chapter, this was a bit of Genesis being more self aware and aware of certain human aspects he may not necessarily like about himself and others. Okay I'm done, have a great weekend.
> 
> *if there are errors [I'm sure there are] i'll attempt to edit tomorrow, have gone over this quite a bit but that's never a guarantee.


	18. Chapter 18

Midgar had changed significantly since Sephiroth had last laid eyes upon it.

For someone with an eidetic-or near-to edetic, he often questioned the professional validity of Hojo’s claims regarding his ability to recollect-memory, the difference was jarring. The picture his psyche held of the cityscape before him was that of industry; of chrome and mental, sometimes near-impenetrable smog, and the low but ever-pervasive hum of the reactors. The Midgar he had known was more machine than metropolis; ever-facing progression via tyranny...ever-neglectful of its citizens. To see empty space or verdant greenery where there had once been structures built solely for the processing and manufacture of the planet’s life force was bizarre. It was clearly an ongoing project, but the steps that had already been taken were clearly vast.

“We’re not entirely green” Genesis had remarked as they entered the city. “Some of it is geothermal, mako isn’t entirely replaceable via wave power. Not yet, and it’s costly.” A vague gesture. “This isn’t my ballpark, more Aerith’s.” The redhead smirked. “We have an Environmental Committee, but the truth of it is that most of this stuff is sustainable via shareholders.”

“Old corporate?” Sephiroth ventured.

“Pretty much” was the scoffed reply. “When Shinra’s assets were frozen their benefactors and contributors had to sort their shit out fast. Funding was low and all that capital was in stasis so we cut Rufus a deal. Hand over the company or use the knowledge and resources he had to make something better. Exterior dissolution for the sake of public image, but retain relevant offices in order to establish a new system. He needed some guidance to deviate from his old man’s ways of running things but it’s estimated in a decade it’ll all be self-sustaining.”

“What of the beneficiaries?” the silver-haired man had pressed as the truck jolted over a bump in the road. When Genesis looked slightly confused, he elaborated. “Do they gain anything from their status?”

“A salary” was the dry response. “Most of them are employed, which I’m sure is a huge step down from sitting on their asses accumulating money, but that’s not how we geared this up to operate.”

It was a huge alteration.

Not in a manner adverse, but in a manner that he was unaccustomed to. The greater part of Midgar-in the sense of it being somewhat tiered-was unchanged...but it was clearly less of a tier of class. Genesis explained that the slums were still an ongoing project. Finding sustainable jobs for an insurmountable amount of people that were once destitute was difficult until they acknowledged that there were multiple positions available in regards to maintaining city infrastructure. This included those employed who worked on ecologically-friendly building components.

“The concern is finding jobs for them when that’s done” Genesis had commented. “We want to build, but we don’t want to build indefinitely.”

“There’s always technology” Sephiroth pointed out, and he was given a somewhat wry look in return.

“Yeah, there is” was the murmured response. “I think that’s a problem, if I’m realistic about it. We don’t know when to stop, and look where that got us with Shinra.”

“But we can’t ignore it.”

“No” was the blithe agreement through a heaved sigh. “If we do, someone else is gonna snatch it up and do all manner of shady shit with it. The issue is creating something positive through an ever-progressing, evermore complex system of technical evolution. I don’t know jack about that, Seph, I’m just old and worried about the world.”

‘Old’ was a relative term, of course.

Even as they jolted over another pothole, Sephiroth was not ignorant to the fact that Genesis hadn’t aged a day..at least not physically. It was a bit disturbing to acknowledge the fact that he’d never considered the parameters of mako and aging before. Then again...he’d never particularly had much interest in his own mortality before. He’d never feared death...and by proxy he had never feared aging. ‘Aging’, of course, to the general populace meant senility and physical degradation. To him, it meant that eventually...he might be able to _stop_. Even if stopping merely meant he was discarded somewhere, written off as useless by the regime he served...the idea of dying was that of respite and not that of lack of dignity or a failure to serve. He wanted to ask Genesis about it...because his experience with ‘age’ was an existence in the Lifestream. Realistically, the redhead across from him in the bed of a truck was far older mentally than he was...possibly by a great amount. He’d been a father while Sephiroth had been...virtually nothing.

The closer they got to the flat...the more he recognized the landmarks.

Not from his memories, of course, but from what he could vaguely remember of Saoirse’s. Blue eyes lingered on him as he automatically looked at the school that he knew she went to when they passed it...and they continued to look as he unconsciously acknowledged street signs and shopfronts. He didn’t know how to bring his-however brief-segments of inhabitancy in their daughter’s psyche to light. The former General didn’t, in all honesty, think that Genesis would appreciate knowing he’d been somewhat present but had failed to reach out. The longer he let it linger, however, the worse the possible results of his disclosure once he worked up the courage to do so. Upon entering the city limits, Vincent had thrown him a hoodie and he’d taken it gratefully...but never had he felt more of an invader in a foreign state as he did now. He’d had such moments before, of course. When Hojo had let him from the labs, assimilating into the everyday life of Soldier...into the bureaucracy that was Shinra, it was a monstrous task. Somehow, this felt worse, because as far as the universe was concerned, he shouldn’t exist.

Genesis was hanging on to a semblance of grounding remarkably well.

The struggle wasn’t obvious...but it was there. Sephiroth knew the older man well enough to identify his tells...and his tells were, at the current moment, borderline hysterical. He would catch it every so often...in a wild-eyed glance, in the way he was sitting...tense and upright. Without the presence of leathers and straps body language was-he had found-far easier to read. The Genesis of now seemed to favor jeans and T-shirts, and his posture was strung out...on-edge and somewhat angled away from him. It hurt him, to think that he was the mitigator of such tension, but he could also acknowledge that there was very little he could do about it. When they entered city limits the redhead put on sunglasses to hide the visual strain but the bodily strain was still apparent.

Vincent left them at the apartment building.

Sephiroth knew-from his collected memories-that the loft was at the very top...but ‘coming back’ to it was still bizarre in ways he did not like to acknowledge. The area around it was nondescript but clearly a safe neighborhood and the complex itself was gated and sequestered away from some of the greater buildings nearer to the center of Midgar and-by proxy-HQ. Stepping down from the truck felt like stepping into an entirely different universe...even if it was only a few feet to the ground. He took it slowly because he felt like if he did otherwise he wouldn’t find the courage to go in and up. Somewhat wryly, he accepted the fact that perhaps time had allowed him to identify his misgivings and deal with them in a way that was more cogent than bleeding out faceless and identity-bereft bodies in the VR room.

“Just...let things be as they are” Genesis had muttered to Vincent. “Tell Saorise I’m home, have Gillian bring her over.”

“Are you sure that’s w-”

“-If you can think of a better way” was the hastily snapped interruption before the redhead appeared to gather himself. “Let’s hear it.”

Vincent couldn’t. Or, at least, Sephiroth assumed he couldn’t, because he merely nodded at the two of them before getting back into the truck. Somewhat vaguely, the green-eyed former first acknowledged that it was a repurposed company truck-he recognized the make and model-before it drove away. Genesis had stared mulishly after it for a moment or two before seeming to collect himself; he gestured for Sephiroth to follow him and they made their way inside. The foyer was-blessedly-empty, as was the elevator ride up to the loft. He knew there were stairs; Saoirse had taken them often enough for him to know that, but he imagined it was more convenient to access the elevator when possible. There was, of course, elevator _music_ , of the ilk that was at once comically terrible and simultaneously awkward considering the circumstances.

Very little about the loft had changed.

Entering the white-washed, somewhat quaint space, Sephiroth’s eyes flicked to the hallway where he knew the picture of Saoirse would be hanging. The entirety of the dwelling itself was unlike Genesis in the sense that it lacked the flamboyance and general pomp and circumstance of his apartment in HQ. It only solidified the fact that, realistically, the man who had let him in the door was someone different-if not entirely, then in terms of lifestyle-than the man who had been forced to let him bleed out on snowy soil. Almost habitually, the former General made to go for the kitchen before stopping himself and waiting somewhat uncertainly next to the sofa as Genesis took of his sunglasses and placed them on the table in the foyer. Next to them was something pink and fluffy that he couldn’t identify, but he assumed it was Saoirse’s.

“I didn’t keep any memorabilia” Genesis said at length, stepping around him to traipse over to the kitchen. “You’re not popular with the public.”

“That doesn’t surprise me” Sephiroth replied, following him and leaning on the counter opposite as the older man pulled some coffee filters down from a cabinet and began to fuss with the pot in a state that appeared almost semi-automatic. “Genesis...we don’t have to do this.”

The fingers holding the filter slipped slightly before they resumed their task.

“Do what?” was the deceptively light response.

“You don’t have to have me here,” Sephiroth replied. “None of this...it’s not-” he faltered as his companion’s ears began to turn red. “You can’t tell me you’re comfortable-”

“-I’m _not_ ” was the interruption. Genesis’ hands shook and he placed the filter into the coffee pot before spinning around and fixing the younger man with a hysterical glare. “I’m _not comfortable_ , no. But I’m dealing, and fuck if I’m doing it badly, but I don’t know how to deal with this otherwise.”

“You’re not-” the silver-haired man began uncertainly before he was cut off again.

“-I _killed_ you” was the low continuation. “I watched you die. I _grieved_ you for years, for over a _decade_. I left you on that battlefield, but I left myself there too. I died with you, Sephiroth. And I _never got over it._ ” Genesis took a deep breath and closed his eyes...jaw working before he spoke once more. “There was no closure for me. Nothing. And your half-assed reasoning, your _sacrifice_ , fuck your sacrifice, Seph. Because damn if you didn’t just murder yourself walking away like that, you murdered me too. You _ruined_ me; I was entirely destroyed.” A smile that was nowhere near friendly. “And I’m doing this, because the alternative is that I drag you back out to that wretched, awful field and gut you all over again, because you might as well-you might as well just _fuck off_ \- but I’m not willing to do that to our daughter.”

The semi-hysterical laugh that bubbled up from the older man’s throat was despairing.

“And there’s a part of me, a part of me that I both _love_ and _hate_ that still loves _you_ despite it all. And it makes me wonder just how fucked up I am, how utterly broken I am to just-” A wild gesture. “-Toss all of it!” Sapphire eyes snapped open, focused on him with an expression that was as heart-wrenching as it was desolate. “You’re never going to get who I was then back. Do you understand that? Because I had to tear myself down, to the fucking _ground_ , and then build myself back up. For Saorise. I’ve lived, and she’s the _only_ reason I’m still alive, for her. So yeah, I am not comfortable, but I’ve learned to be uncomfortable. You _forced_ me to learn that again, even though I’d already learned it, a thousand times. I didn’t consent to any of this, but you took it and you made it yours, you bent that reasoning like it was sword and steel, and I learned to twist myself around your selfishness until I was functioning. But that’s all I ever was; functioning.”

“Jenova-” Sephiroth interjected.

“-Jenova is the _least_ of our worries at the current moment” was the barely-cogent reply. “And maybe we have you to thank for that, but I’m not entirely sure because the Lifestream, according to Aerith, is still corrupt. So she might be out of your head, but she’s not off the Planet. Hojo is still alive and he might have a henchman in a personified form of the corrupt Lifestream.” A sarcastic wave. “Welcome back to life Seph, everything is still very fucked up.”

It was not what he wanted to hear.

Of course it wasn’t; even if Jenova wasn’t seated in his psyche anymore, there was no telling if she was capable of reseating herself now. The idea that she might...somewhat like she had after Saorise was born, made Sephiroth somewhat nauseous. Some of his discomfort must have shown on his face, because Genesis relented...if only a little. Fumbling about in a drawer, the redhead retrieved a picture of what appeared to be a grey blob-slid it towards him across the counter-before turning back to the coffee pot.

“Saoirse drew that when she was four” was the gruff comment. “Don’t know how she associated you and grey because she’d never seen a picture of you.” Sephiroth knew but he thought it wise not to say anything. “I’m not trying to be a dick” Genesis continued. “But...this is a lot...and I...I went from admiring you from a distance, to envying you, to having a horrible crush on you, to _loving_ you and then to losing you. It’s..whiplash, to have you back.”

“I think I envied _you_ ” Sephiroth muttered at length, and when Genesis looked incredulous, he laughed but it was self-depreciating. “You were always so unapologetically yourself.” Shifting the picture Saorise had drawn to the side, he leaned on the island counter. “I was always what Shinra told me to be. And when I didn’t have Shinra, I had dogma...that doesn’t go away immediately.” A shake of a silver head. “I find it somewhat difficult to understand how you cared for me at all when I didn’t have an ounce of individuality within me.”

“It was always so strange,” the younger man continued. “Having so many...admirers...I never understood it...because how can you… _deify_ someone who doesn’t have a face underneath what the media sells you? I always felt that was the height of ignorance. It’s why I had and have no patience for religion, because how do you love someone whose reward system in your life is based on how much you give them?It’s like filling an empty cup and drinking it to the dregs only to find it empty again.” A shaky exhale. “You can drink it, you can drink it until you’re _reeling_ with it, but in the end it’s only a cup.”

Genesis was silent for a while across from him. The coffee pot went off but neither of them moved.

“I think…” the redhead said at length. “That the fact that you can acknowledge that...that you _could_ acknowledge that shows you were someone.” The older man shifted, and slid a hand across the table till it was but inches from him before it was pulled away once more. Looking somewhat awkward, Genesis rubbed the aforementioned appendage across the back of his neck, blinking once before turning to the coffee pot. “And you’re not a cup, Seph. You’re a person.” A pause and the scarlet-haired former First took a sip, closing his eyes as he did so. “Maybe that was it” was the eventual mutter against a ceramic rim. “I...just...I was pissed at you a lot, probably because I knew there was more, it just wasn’t getting out like it should have.”

“That’s a very constipated anecdote,” Sephiroth remarked drily, and his companion barked out a laugh.

 _”Yeah”_ Genesis chortled, pouring a slightly more optimistic cup before handing it over. “That pretty well covers it.” A pause and he grimaced. “And, y’know, all that shit makes it seem like I was trying to get more out of you than what was available from an outside perspective. I just…” A slender fingered hand clenched on the countertop before flexing. “My old man” Genesis said hoarsely. “Was a tyrant. The longer I’m a Dad, the more I realize how much of a tyrant he was, and the more I realize what a tyrant Hojo was, and the more I hate him...the more I hate them. Because people like that...they make you avoidant...afraid and resigned when it comes to all forms of love. And it doesn’t take a fucking Dad who beats the shit out of you to do it...sometimes it just takes negligence. Depends on the person, I guess, but I dealt with it differently than you, pretty much the _opposite_ of how you did.” Another vague gesture. “Just...flung myself at whoever would have me, for however short a time and if I got a nice high out of it...that was fine. You withdrew. That pissed me off, that kind of self-control, that power over self-regulation. I envied it but I told myself I just had...more to me than you did.”

“...I envied your confidence and freedom and wrote you off as an explosive lunatic” Sephiroth said blandly.

Genesis smirked but it was an embittered sort of smirk.

“Funny, how we demonize the people we admire.” There was the sound of a car pulling up and the older man set his coffee cup down with a grimace. “Not funny, really, it’s sad.” The scarlet-haired Soldier grinned somewhat self-consciously. “I’m an explosive lunatic, but damn I’d like to get to a point where I like myself. Couldn’t say that before.” Raising an eyebrow, Genesis winked cheekily. “I think there’s a lot to like, I’m just too dumb to see it.”

“I like you,” Sephiroth said, almost automatically.

This time when Genesis grinned, it was genuine.

“Still weirdly sweet.” An immediate sobering. “But right now this scares the hell out of me, and I don’t really know if that’s going to change anytime soon.” The doorbell rang and both men stopped and looked at each other for a moment. “Joking aside...right now I don’t know how to feel. That’s the most blatantly honest answer I can give it. I’m angry with you, I’m angry with _myself_ and I’m angry with...everything that’s brought us to this. This won’t get better overnight, and I’m not going to pretend it’s fine in order to find a way through it. That won’t cause a positive space for us long term.”

“For what it’s worth” Sephiroth said quietly as the older man went to get the door. “I missed you...even if at times it was only a vague concept of what we were.”

Pausing, Genesis opened his mouth to reply but there was the sound of the key in the lock and they were forced to revert their attention elsewhere.

Saoirse favored Genesis.

Even if she was a barely-discernible scarlet blur rushing to throw her arms around the aforementioned man, Sephiroth could still acknowledge that she looked like her father...the one that had been present. She was tall, but both of them were tall...it was more in the smattering of freckles across her nose; the set of her smile before it was buried in a shoulder. For all his bitterness and resentment, Genesis somehow managed to make that disappear in her presence. It was a skill that the silver-haired man had never seen him execute before, but he did it masterfully. There was some small degree of anxiety in observing it...in the sense of feeling woefully inadequate...as much, if not more, as he had been woefully absent.

“They didn’t tell me you were home!” was the excited exclamation as Saoirse stepped back. After a moment, she appeared to reconsider her statement. “ _You_ didn’t tell me you were home” was the accusing remark. “You didn’t call me.”

“I wanted to,” Genesis said, apology lacing his tone. “But there was something I was dealing with.”

It was then that Saorise noticed Sephiroth.

Realistically, she didn’t appear to acknowledge him at first; green eyes-not unlike his own-merely flickered to him before refocusing on Genesis and then flicking back. Still leaning against the counter next to the picture of the grey blob that was him, Sephiroth found himself entirely without words. Because this was _his_ daughter, but he didn’t know her...not really. His memories of Saoirse in the physical world consisted of holding her as an infant. And there was a part of him...a deeply instinctual part of him born from the biology that he despised that knew her intrinsically. It recognized her and that recognition settled low in his chest in a manner that ached. It hurt in ways that he did not know how to put into words.

“...Dad?” Saoirse whispered...addressing Genesis.

“I was dealing with something,” the aforementioned man repeated, reaching for her hand and taking it tentatively. “Some _one_.”

It was a long time before Soairse spoke again.

When she did, it was halting and a little bit resentful.

“You’re him?” she asked the silver-haired man tonelessly. “You’re...my…”

“I’m Sephiroth,” he replied. “Yes. But I don’t have to be anything to you, if you don’t wish it.” Blinking, he smiled a bit crookedly. “But I would like to be.”

He was expecting a negative reaction.

He was not expecting _fear_.

But that’s exactly what it was. When he spoke...all the color drained out of Saorise’s face and she wrenched her hand out of Genesis’ in a wild, almost flailing gesture. The extremity of the reaction seemed to confuse the older man as well, because he stepped forward for a moment before looking somewhat helpless.

“Saoirse…” Genesis said uncertainly. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I should have but-”

“I know your voice” was the shaky declaration even as the speaker backed herself straight up into the door and stayed there.

The bottom dropped out of Sephiroth’s stomach even as Genesis looked at him in confusion.

_”I know your voice!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** Just adding more for myself to 'esplain. Sorry if this feels rushed. Crunched for timing lately & late so got to hit the hay immediately. get weirdly stuck on these conversation chapters. I like them but I know they can get tedious so I'm hoping that will change in the next chapter. There may be glaring errors here but mine googles are too tired to goggle them out atm and have been over several times.
> 
> * _'funny how we demonize the people we want to be the most like'_ or, something close to that. changed to: _'funny how we demonize the people we admire the most'_. Had some personal issues with metaphorical embodiment. That's a no-no.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *This chapter was cut in half because it spanned twenty pages. Other half up sometime this weekend hopefully.

Learning that your recently-resurrected partner had taken residence in your _very_ young daughter’s mind was alarming. 

_’Alarming’_ was a tame word for the emotions that suffused Genesis upon hearing as much. Sephiroth’s side of the information, however, he didn't glean until about a week later. Bits and pieces...he was able to piece such things together from talking to Soairse, but he didn’t get the full picture. This was mostly because he panicked and kicked Sephiroth out of the apartment. The term _’kicked out’_ was a little dramatic; he’d asked the younger man to leave and he did. With Gillian, of course, he wasn’t so heartless as to kick the silver-haired ex-first out on his ass. It was, in many aspects, a sharp contrast to their previous departures to one another. 

Mostly in the sense that it wasn’t horrifically tragic or horrifically violent. 

Despite being somewhat absentee in spirit, Genesis had learned-at least to some degree-to prioritize Saoirse’s needs above those of others. There was-undeniably-a part of him that wanted Sephiroth present; if not because he cared for him then because there was an irrational facet of his psyche that insisted that the silver-haired former First was going to vanish. This segment of his consciousness warred against the tattered remnants of his rationale. Not that any facet of the situation was...rational. Genesis wanted Sephiroth to stay, but he didn’t want him to stay at the expense of his daughter’s comfort… _their_ daughter’s comfort. 

That was all a bit muddled as well. 

The glaring truth that Sephiroth was genetically Saoirse’s father but not socially her father bothered him...as someone who was both socially and biologically her father. There was-however-the equally weighty fact that Sephiroth carried all the facets the capacity to _be_ a parent required. Genesis knew this to be true as much as he knew it was true that the former General had not been present-at least not _physically_ present-in the ways that most parents were. The idea of letting the younger man back into his life was scary, but if he was scared, Saoirse was likely _terrified_. Because here was the faceless individual that her father had spent so long breaking himself into the ground over while failing to see her pain...alive, in the flesh. 

Moreover, here was the man with the _voice_ that had lingered in the recesses of her psyche for-what he could surmise was-several years. 

It was a dilemma of cataclysmic proportions because he had always been fiercely supportive of his daughter choosing her own path. Whether when it came to career choices, schooling, or relationships, the scarlet-haired former Commander had always encouraged Saoirse to only do what she felt comfortable doing, and only in a space where she felt safe and supported. He was the least qualified person to force unwanted relationships on others...he was too-aware of what that felt like, and also too-aware of the resentment such actions fostered long-term. Genesis wasn’t-if he were entirely honest-sure that he was _crazy_ about enforcing Saoirse’s love for Sephiroth regardless. How could he push a relationship that he himself was not entirely positive he wanted to foster on his own? Somewhat grimly, he had to acknowledge that it would have been smarter to set Sephiroth up in a hotel and integrate him gradually… _after_ making the decision that such integration was worth it. This was-of course-assuming that the younger man wanted to be integrated at all. He’d seen the longing in the silver-haired ex-Soldier’s face when he saw their daughter, but he didn’t know if that longing was a longing born from nostalgia or a genuine desire to be present. 

He had to accept the solidly possible fact that Sephiroth might not want to be a parent. 

The reality of that acknowledgement hurt more than he wanted it to, and the fact that it hurt him _hurt_ him doubly because it meant that he was not being entirely objective with his viewpoint. Maybe in terms of action...he would be, but in terms of outlook...he _wanted_ to be a family unit...or perhaps part of him was hanging on to that delusion of co-parenting perfection he had always so desperately wished for in the years nearer to Sephiroth’s death. This perception warred with his deep, abiding fear of loss and rejection...there were too many contradicting wavelengths in his psyche for him to trust himself enough to make decisions based on any emotion...and so he was forced to go with logic...or what was as close to logic as was humanly possible. Logic dictated that he needed to come to terms with what was going on...what would need to be compromised in order to move forward, and what to do with himself in the meantime. 

The meantime, for a week, consisted of getting Saoirse’s side of the story. 

It was-admittedly-less dramatic than he had surmised it would be. His conscious brain had conjured up images of his long-dead partner whispering all sorts of terrible things in his daughter’s innocent ears. This was, according to Saoirse, not the case. It seemed that there were times when Sephiroth was merely present but never interactive...but she’d still been vaguely aware that she was not alone. The picture she had drawn when she was five made _a lot_ more sense now...even though she was insistent that Sephiroth had never appeared to her as anything physical. He was close enough to the younger man to know that everything about him presented as greyscale upon first glance. It took effort to bring out Sephiroth’s colors...and even then they were pale...featherlight nuances that were singularly of him. It was hard to describe the process of feeling someone as much as seeing someone...but Sephiroth felt dove-grey...like a thunderhead...like the sea when it rained. 

More than that, it seemed like Sephiroth had only ever made himself more than vaguely known to help Saoirse. 

It hurt him...to acknowledge that while he was off shagging whoever would fill the empty void within him, his partner was desperately trying to comfort his devastated daughter from the Beyond. There was a part of him that wanted to be angry about it, but it was angry in the sense that it was guilty and that guilty anger was displaced onto a man who had only seen his child suffering and done what he felt safe doing in his current state. If he looked at it from all angles, he could also give a nod to the fact that such interactions would have caused Sephiroth insurmountable pain...because while he could gently nudge their daughter in the direction of comfort or safety, he couldn’t physically _do_ anything. Sephiroth could never hold Saoirse when she was sad, he could never give her anything, he couldn’t...or perhaps wouldn’t for her sake...say who he was. 

The loneliness that would have fostered would have been crushing to anyone; to eternally have to watch your child grow up from behind a veil. And it would have been different if Sephiroth was cruel, if he was insulting or poisonous...but that was not the case. Saoirse’s account, what little he could gather during that time, again, only solidified his certainty that the younger man was entirely capable of being a parent. He’d been able to _comfort_ his daughter without actually talking to her. Maybe that was a facet of the hive mind...he didn’t particularly know...but it was enough to tell him that there was a parental figure in his former partner whether he liked it-and he did...some of him liked it and some of him didn’t-or not. 

That wasn’t to say that the entirety of the week was easy. 

Saoirse had inherited some of Sephiroth’s traits in the sense that she wasn’t the type to explode. It had taken Genesis a while to understand the concept of implosion, but with Soairse, he’d had to very quickly. She spent much of the week in her room and he allowed it because he knew she was trying to come to terms with her own feelings in regards to what was going on. On the third day, she came out to eat dinner, and they didn’t discuss Sephiroth. Not at first, in any case. Instead, they covered what she’d been doing while he was away...even if it was mere everyday things such as getting to know Vincent or spending time with Aerith and Gillian. 

Normalcy, Genesis had learned, was critical to communication. He was the type to dive into the thick of things immediately in order to problem-solve and most people did not have the emotional tolerance to be so direct. In the past, he’d viewed the dialogue in which people got to the point as tedious...but he’d come to understand that it was necessary in order to establish grounding...even for himself. Just because he was not in-tune with the emotional cues needed to have a healthy conversation didn’t mean that they were nonexistent. The vestiges of whatever youth remained in him declared such conversation ‘utter bullshit’, but the need for bullshit in life was rather vast, or so he’d come to understand. Saorise didn’t do bullshit, but she did scheduling and she did normalcy because they were necessary organizational facets of her being.

She took the news that he had killed Sephiroth rather better than he thought she would. 

Really, she took it so well he was a bit ashamed of himself for keeping it from her for so long. To Saoirse, the fact that he’d been the reason that Sephiroth had died was justification. Not necessarily for his actions, but for the grief he had found near-impossible-if not entirely impossible-to overcome. She didn’t sympathize, but it was clear that she understood him better, and understood the dilemma of Sephiroth’s presence better. That wasn’t to say that she was entirely comfortable with it, but there were times when he was staggeringly grateful that Soairse had also gotten Sephiroth’s ability to logically deduce reasoning. He was fairly sure that they wouldn’t have a relationship otherwise, and that was entirely to her credit and none to his. Getting through the details in regards to the younger man’s presence in her mind was harder...and he had a sneaking suspicion it was because she had always worried that it was due to some facet of herself being a little bit...screwy. There was no way to communicate that it was okay to have your other-Dad in your head giving you fatherly advice, so he said nothing and just let her talk. She did, but only in spurts here and there...in between idle things, when the subject couldn’t be ignored anymore. 

Some warmth was lost between them. 

Genesis had expected as much, merely because the notion of Sephiroth was so much emotional competition for Saoirse she was going to inevitably withdraw. He offered reassurances where he felt they wouldn’t sound grandiose or over-exaggerated, but otherwise didn’t go out of his way to pander to what she was feeling...because he knew that _she_ knew him well enough to know that _he_ knew when she needed space. They’d had their disagreements and their fights...but this was different. It wasn’t necessarily a fight, but it was a massive change in their shared space; one he wasn’t entirely sure how to manage correctly, and so he did the best with it that he could considering how poorly he always handled pretty much everything. When the weekend rolled around, Saoirse announced that she was going to walk in order spend it with a friend and he didn’t stop her. She hugged him goodbye, and he counted that as good enough all things considered. 

He spent the next six hours panicking over how he was going to approach Sephiroth again. 

It was an irrational kind of panicking, because the logical facet of him was able to acknowledge that nothing particularly _bad_ had happened during their time apart. The younger man likely knew that he’d removed him from his flat in order to talk to Saoirse, and it was very unlikely he was going to hold that over him. The _illogical_ facet of him insisted that Sephiroth would harbor a deep abiding grudge for his perceived ‘abandonment’ of him in the face of their progeny, he would never forgive him, and he was probably in Corel right now starting a wonderful life as an extra-sexy-ghosty scuba instructor; childless and free...with his hair rippling in the wind and a speedo adorning his ass cheek-

-Logic carried very little weight when he had too many things to consider at once. 

Genesis ended up meeting Vincent at new-HQ in order to determine what had gone on when he had disappeared. There was still no real explanation for that save that the presence of the Jenova cells in his blood-however small-had allowed Thierry...or whatever it was, to transfer him across the planet. He also got to see the lovely pictures of the massive, evil-genius level ocean laboratory that had been constructed under their noses. That did nothing to improve his mood, nor did the fact that nothing of any particular relevance had been found to point them in a helpful direction. He gathered zero comfort from the fact that the place had been dismantled because they’d never known it was there in the first place. Genesis then stopped to talk to Aerith, who kept looking at him like she expected him to explode at any moment. 

_”How are you holding up?”_ she’d asked over a stack of green energy brochures. 

_’Like the sixth round of vodka at a rave’_ he’d snapped back, and that was the extent to which they delved into his feelings. 

Aerith was quick to admit that Sephiroth’s signature in the Lifestream was gone. Whatever had held him there hadn’t left any trace remnants behind...which was a good sign that he was the real deal. There was no possibility of him being a copy because a copy wouldn’t have erased him from the Lifestream, it would have acted as a shell that carried no real planetary weight when it came to ghostly person-essence. This didn’t solve the whole _’what are we going to do about Jenova?’_ problem, or the _’what are we going to do about Hojo?’_ problem. He had no idea where Hojo would or could have relocated so quickly, and he had no idea where to start looking because the now very-real hazard of hologram fortresses in the middle of the wilderness was before him. Checking in with Angeal left him even less comforted. Apparently he and Willow weren’t speaking and the dark-haired former First was too distracted to particularly focus on anything regarding present concerns. 

This left him with absolutely _nothing_ to do save talk to Sephiroth. 

_Sephiroth_ , who as it happened, was still with Gillian and was eating a piece of pineapple on the porch when he arrived. It was so bizarre-upon pulling up-to see the younger man sitting there chewing awkwardly on a piece of fruit that he spent a few minutes staring blankly at him before getting out of his vehicle. Sephiroth was wearing a pair of blue jeans that must have been Angeal’s-they were too short at the ankle-and a button-up blue shirt that was a little too loose. His hair he appeared to have wrestled into some semblance of order and he looked bathed, which was better than the bedraggled state he’d been when they’d parted ways. He was no less Gaia-awfully handsome, and the simplicity of his garments seemed to only add to his ridiculousness rather than detract from it. It was clear that he’d heard Genesis pull up, but he was apparently too busy with food to really acknowledge the redhead’s presence until he was directly before him. 

“Gen” he greeted him...simple and not at all sweet, but with a bit of pineapple stuck between his teeth. Not an obvious amount, just enough that he got a glimpse of it before the former General stopped talking again.

Which was maybe why Genesis kissed him, he wasn’t entirely sure. 

He did, however. Sephiroth was sitting at a height that put him in a rather convenient position to be kissed. When he did so, he got the barest hint of what his companion was eating before said companion stiffened and then promptly dropped the pineapple so he could haul him into it by his hair. It was sweet in ways not entirely sequestered to fructose. The cradle of those long, adroit fingers at the base of his skull was nostalgic in a manner that left him nearly reeling. They lingered there but a moment before one descended so it could stroke over the sparse hair trailing down the nape of his neck while the other cupped his cheek. Somewhere, he was sure that Gillian was watching them disapprovingly through a window, but he couldn’t bring himself to care when the mouth he was so focused on was both at once cool and temperate...not overtly soft but giving in ways so many others had not been. It didn’t last long, of course, but it was still _more_ than enough to remember what he had missed, and much more than enough to leave him dizzy and disoriented in its wake. Sephiroth withdrew to pick up the pineapple and he was left to blink stupidly after him as he went into the house and shut the door behind him. 

It took him a while to regather himself.

Mostly because he had to gather his loins from the floor, but also because he didn’t like the level of imbalance such a simple thing had proffered him. Genesis ended up sitting on the front step staring blankly at the bushes and not coming in at all. Sephiroth ended up coming back out, and they sat silently on the stoop while the sounds of Gillian cooking dinner became apparent. It was-he acknowledged numbly-rather late in the day. 

“I always hated it” was the low beginning. “All of it.” 

“The hive mind?” Genesis prompted when he managed to collect himself enough. Lowering himself onto the step next to him, the former General was quiet for a few moments before he spoke once more. 

_”Yes”_...with Jenova...there was no place I could escape, no sense of individual self. Hojo’s argument would be the group advantage of universal understanding, but I do not believe universal understanding is worth the sacrifice of _true_ individuality; the right to privacy.” A pause and they watched as a bird landed to observe them on the corner of the porch. “And what of people with histories like ours?” he murmured. “People with irreversible scars or mental defects...that gets integrated into the hive mind as well.” 

A derisive sneer. 

“And I am not so foolish as to believe such things would be healed or mitigated by a cranial network. Not at the sacrifice of emotional singularity. People like… _‘undesirables’_ would be culled for polluting the network. The only thing you have...after the fact...no matter how advanced, benevolent, or alien your technology, is an army. An army that acts as if individual, but is merely millions of cells in a singular biome; a planet...planets. _Slavery._ ” A deep breath. “There is no difference” was the low rumble. “Between the hive mind- _any_ hive mind-and Shinra...not in eventuality of result. Eventually, you are stripped of yourself. However small the increment...however inveigling the torpor, however beautiful the coagulation. So you must understand why I abhor this, Genesis...Jenova or no. I have no _wish_ to be a slave, even if my fellow prisoners are those I love, it’s still a prison. And not merely a prison unto me, but a prison unto my child.”

A green eyed glance was cast his way. 

“I...love you, Genesis” Sephiroth either didn’t see or ignored when the aforementioned man stiffened. “But I would never want you in my head. Not because I consider you unworthy...but because there are, to me, some facets of the self that I would never want anyone to suffer conjointly with me. Some suffering is private. Can you say with total verity that you would wish me to relive the last decade or some with you and Saoirse via your psyche? Every intimate, individual emotion laid bare for me to analyze and take apart and experience?” 

Despite his desire to declare otherwise, Genesis couldn’t disagree with the younger man’s analogy. In the years directly after Sephiroth’s death...the agony he’d experienced was something he had never been capable of coming up with the correct words to describe. It wasn’t an interpersonal darkness...it was a nuance of anguish so confidential that the concept of having another lay it open like a book was not only unsettling...it felt violating. 

“So why did you do it?” he asked gruffly. “Why look through Saoirse?” 

“Because it was the only thing I had” was the clearly ashamed reply. “And it was selfish, but it was also desperate.” 

Swallowing, Genesis nodded slowly.

“I kinda guessed that.” 

“For what it’s worth, I regret it.” 

“It seems like you helped her” the scarlet-haired man said quietly. When Sephiroth looked confused, he grimaced. “Saoirse told me...of the times you comforted her...helped her avoid trouble.” 

“It was the least I could do” was the somewhat despairing return. “I’m her fath-” an abrupt pause and he watched silver brows draw together in a rather comical expression of confusion. “-What am I to her? With-” a vague gesture downwards. “Am I her _father?_ ”

“Really” Genesis said dryly. “You’re gonna have a crisis over whether Soairse should call you ‘Mom’ or ‘Dad’ now?” 

“No” was the tight response. “But...considering the times, should I even bring it up?” 

“Mmm” the redhead hummed. “Well, I’d say what matters is if it matters to you.” A shrug. “As far as I can remember, you’ve always been a dude. Just because gender norms and your biological gender don’t necessarily say that doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to say what you are. Denying your validity as a man because of wanting to abolish gender norms is a little bit like denying immigrants citizenship in a country that totes itself as borderless by citing those borders as the reason for denial. It’s targeting a vulnerable population under an existing system, and leveraging that system against that vulnerable population under the pretense of abolishing it. It’s just as oppressive as having borders, but it’s worse because it’s _hiding_ under the guise of free thought.” 

“How does every tyrannical regime start? Real fucking obvious or a little bit sneaky? Kind of like your hive mind conundrum; pushing coagulated individuality for the sake of universal unification is nice, but if you’re judging and degrading the people who choose to live outside of unification, then you’re really not that unified, you’re just perpetuating a hate movement in disguise.” Genesis shrugged. “And sure, there are people in that area that are just fine, but the point is to just let people be.” 

“When did you become an activist?!” was the slightly incredulous demand.

“I’m _not_ ” the redhead snorted. “But Seph, being with you taught me that all that shit...it’s so dumb at extremes. On all sides. So be whatever the hell you want. Whoever you want. Right now, our focus is on whether or not you _want_ to be in Saoirse’s life at all.” 

Sephiroth looked about as flabbergasted as Genesis had ever seen him. 

“Why wouldn’t I?” 

“I don’t _know_ ” Genesis huffed. “It’s been...Seph it’s been forever and a fucking _age_. I’m old, and I am _exhausted_ despite the fact that I don’t look it. If I didn’t...care for you the way I do, I don’t think I’d be with someone ever again. If...whatever the hell this is doesn’t work out, I’m not going to. I’m practically eternally emotionally platonic, that’s not sexy. Add being a Dad to that and I’m basically whatever your version of a spinster that likes sex is. I’m donzo. Through. I don’t even know how we’re going to make this work now. Integrating you into...my life, into Saoirse’s life...you haven’t _lived_ Seph! What have you done your entire fucking life? Served Shinra? Made a baby and then got offed by your boyfriend?! At least I got to...screw up as a kid, choose my path. You never did. I’m not going to tell you you’ve gotta be here because I _sort of_ want you here.” 

There was a pause as Sephiroth fingered his belt loops...his expression unreadable. 

“Genesis” he finally said. “Even if we never end up...as we were...I would still want to be a part of Saoirse’s life. If she’d have me” was the amended statement. “But I know it’s not a question of merely reinserting myself here.” 

“No” the Genesis agreed. “It’s not, but I think we’re both overthinking this a bit.” 

“Shouldn’t we overthink it?” Sephiroth replied. “Considering the results of...underthinking things prior?” 

“If Shinra was still in power, I would say yes to that” the older man commented, pulling at his sleeve before letting go. “But...in this case...I think it should be a case of taking it one day at a time.” 

“But if it’s-” 

-Sometimes, Genesis would reflect bitterly in the future. The universe seemed to hand them the worst cards at the most inconvenient times. In the carnival that was life, he supposed that he really shouldn’t have been surprised by it at this point. But when Vincent’s truck came tearing into the driveway, he could do little bit descend into a kind of colloquial panic. When the aforementioned man stumbled out of the cab to say what he said next, it only made it worse. 

“Saoirse” the crimson-eyed man barked out. “Saoirse’s gone missing...I lost her close to her destination...and she never arrived.” 

“I can’t find her _anywhere_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** Genesis, thou art perpetually shook [shooken? shooketh], yet the universe doth not giveth you answers quite so sweeth as the pineapple stucketh betwixt Seph’s teeth. 
> 
> Many would agreeth that this ficwriter perchance was dropped on his noggin as a screamy small human. 
> 
> So! I went back and read the whole thing for this chapter due to having things I wanted to cover with as much accuracy as possible. Concept of the validity of social parentage I robbed [pilfering left and right] from ContraPoints’ video ‘Pronouns’. The concept regarding Seph's genderific identity I robbed from another video...pretty much verbatim, called 'Gender Critical.' [“trigger” warning for “controversial” yet educational satire of many viewpoints regarding pronouns. and LGBTQ culture. “suffocating” pride. scary stuff folks [shorthand: I adore her. She’s amazing.]
> 
> Have a goodie one.


	20. Chapter 20

Saoirse had always labored under the somewhat consistent-if not constant-impression that parentage was that which was done in the semi-absentee.

She was aware of the fact that this was not the case for every child. When she was young, she used to _burn_ with envy for classmates that were very clearly a fully functional and whole family unit. Of course, she was never unkind to those classmates like they were to her, but she was still jealous because she wanted that so badly and she didn’t have it. She even envied the classmates who had one present parent and one absent; whether through death or work...she’d have taken it if it meant that she could at least have _one_ immediate person in her life that she could turn to for constant solace. Genesis never let her visit Shikro, and while she understood it, she didn’t necessarily _like_ it. She hadn’t known how her father’s father had treated him at the time, and her logic dictated that just because Genesis had had such a bad relationship with his sire, that didn’t mean she would.

When she learned that Shikro had beat his son on a regular basis those misconceptions came to an end.

Gillian had been somewhat of a mother figure to her growing up, but she had never seemed fully willing to step into those shoes, so to speak. If Saoirse spent too long at her house, she would send her home, and a part of her resented that too. In retrospect, she comprehended that Angeal’s mother did not want to invade a space that didn’t belong to her. More than likely, Genesis would have resented it, and that was the last thing that anyone wanted. Likewise, Aerith had been a female figure in her life, but never one so close that she considered her an Aunt or a sister...though a much older sister at that. Much of her existence was spent on the fringes _of_ existence looking in and trying to figure out how to make herself fit correctly...in a way that didn’t inconvenience her father and in a way in which people wouldn’t treat her like she was the progeny of a supervillain.

She had never excelled in school, mostly because she was bullied so mercilessly it was hard to concentrate on anything else. Soairse wasn’t the type to utilize pressure in order to prove others wrong; she’d caved like water over stone and there were times when she’d had to explain away her grades to Genesis. He was never cruel to her if she didn’t do well, but he was concerned for her and so she merely told him that she’d forgotten to study. ‘Average but earnest’ was a common commentary on her report cards. In some ways, her grades mirrored her existence; because she so desperately _wanted_ things to be well, but they were only ever ‘okay.’ And _’okay’_ was subjective because her parameters of ‘okay’ had to be stretched beyond the parameters that her peers, with their relatively normal lives and families, would have been able to tolerate.

Saoirse had learned tolerance at a very young age.

Mostly because to her, the things she had to observe and endure were normalities; part of her everyday life. She never particularly became aware that it was strange for her father to be so emotionally kerfuffled until she joined school and saw how her classmate’s parents interacted with them. And it wasn’t fair to pin Genesis as entirely neglectful, because he remembered the important things, like recitals and plays and birthdays. He was never violent or particularly vitriolic towards her. Realistically, he was never mean to her at all, but his absence...and there were times when he was _very_ absent...there were times when that hurt more than anything he could have said or done to her. Because it told her that she was not worth that vulnerability...of unloading whatever emotion he had sequestered away inside of him so they could work through it together. It felt like he was keeping an intrinsic part of him sequestered entirely to himself, and she did resent that.

She also resented Vincent following her.

Saoirse hadn’t noticed it immediately, but the crimson-eyed gunslinger was suddenly around a lot more than he used to be. Not that he was disinterested prior, but he was abruptly so invested in her well-being she couldn’t chalk it up to a deepening of understanding between them. Initially, she’d intended to take the issue directly to her father, but when she saw how stressed Genesis was she’d put it on a backburner for a later date...and then merely acclimatized to it. Before, she’d always walked to and from school alone, and she hadn’t hated it because it let her decompress; separate her home life from her school life. In the weeks before school let out Vincent almost always found an excuse to escort her; whether it be breakfast or an ice cream or merely ‘to talk’, the last of which he was terrible at though she suspected it was through no fault of his own. No, her irritation was in the clear extraneous effort he was putting in for reasons that he would not disclose to her, and she asked often. Often enough did she ask that he acceded to the fact that he had volunteered to keep watch over her, but he did not tell her why.

And so her resentment was made twofold.

When she got the news that her father had disappeared it was a little bit like the world had been pulled out from under her feet. Because Genesis was prone to disappearance in an impermanent sense, but for her to receive the news from someone else was devastating because it meant that it was serious. She’d spent her time with Gillian and Vincent and Aerith as she’d been bid...but she didn’t sleep and she hardly ate. Because she did not know how to _feel_ about the possibility of losing someone who had felt so perpetually emotionally absent in the first place. Not in the sense that he did not love her, but in the sense that so much of him was taken up with loving someone who wasn’t there and might never be. A nasty voice inside of her whispered that he might have found Sephiroth...that he might have run off with him...chosen him over her. She knew, intrinsically, that he would never do such a thing, but she still feared it...and more than that she felt ashamed of fearing it and angry at herself for being ashamed. Willow had-in their brief friendship-taught her that to dismiss her fears as invalid was as counterproductive as giving in to them. _’Balance’_ was a word thrown around quite a bit...but when you lived in a world that seemed doomed to perpetual static...the definition of balance was a thing to be feared and not a thing to strive for.

Then Genesis came home.

He came home...and he brought with him the shadow that had stood between them for so long. Saoirse had been so wrapped up in her happiness...so blinded by the idea of merely _seeing_ her father again that she’d missed the tall, imposing figure taking up every inch of their apartment. _Theirs_ , hers and Genesis’; not _his_...not the man leaning on the kitchen island like he _belonged_ there...a great...lithe persona with yards of silver hair and eyes so much like hers she automatically hated them because that was what she had been taught to do. Sephiroth’s presence was a suffocating, almost corporeal thing that she could feel...and it felt _familiar_. Some of that familiarity was deeply personal, it went further than a vague recognition from a photograph. A part of her she did not like at all insisted that it was a biological recognition. He was beautiful, in a way that something desperately strange was wildly beautiful...almost fey in appearance. Sephiroth carried himself not with arrogance but with a quiet surety that Genesis did not. Because he had not _suffered_ -or so she told herself-like Genesis had...like they all had in his absence.

And then he spoke.

He spoke and the voice was _exactly the same_ ; it was the quiet...carefully timbered baritone that had followed her into tear-soaked sleep for so many nights. It was the voice that had led her away from potential peril; not too many times, but often. It was also the voice that had reassured her in school...the not-voice, that felt at once instinct and individual. Gentle but firm, tentative but deeply protective. And there was yet another part of her, Soairse discovered then, there was yet another part of her that wanted to run into his arms like she had Genesis’. It wanted to throw her arms around him and cry into his chest because it _knew_ him...possibly better than she knew the man who had raised her as best he could. And he knew her...not the _her_ in the physical setting, but the her in the metaphysical setting. He knew her in a way that no one else did and that _terrified_ her. Because _how dare he know her_ and not reveal who he was, how dare he offer her faceless and nameless comfort in a way that had always made her feel safe and yet _lie_ to her in the same breath.

And yet...when Sephiroth left...she missed him.

It was different with Genesis...after that. Not necessarily in a lack of love but in a lack of closeness. But she missed Sephiroth in a way that confused her, not because it was of an inappropriate nature, but because it was in a way that said, quite firmly and acceptingly, that yes, Sephiroth was her father. She missed him in a manner that said he had always been her father despite the fact that he was never there, and she _hated_ it. She hated the knee-jerk irrationality of it...it was without logic or purpose. Throughout her talks with her present Dad...the one who had always been there, she warred internally with that facet of herself that insisted that she _needed_ Sephiroth to guide her...somehow. That need she learned to morph into a deep, abiding anger, and that anger seemed to suffuse every part of her...until she resented Genesis too, but felt _guilty_ for resenting him and desperately confused with herself. So when she left for the weekend, it was with the intent to clear her head...and to give both of them space. But it wasn’t meant to be.

Saorise was cold.

That was the most prevalent sensation that occurred to her first. It wasn’t your typical cold...like that of a breeze, but that of a freezing, almost intolerable chill that seemed to seep into every inch of her. She was lying on a cold surface...perhaps metal; smooth, unforgiving with that slightly coppery scent that came from tempered rock. The space about her was frigid as well, however; it smelled vaguely of antiseptic and even more vaguely of something else. She wasn’t wearing what she’d worn when she’d left. She distinctly remembered putting on jeans and a T-shirt that morning, and she now appeared to be wearing a thin shift that was perhaps cotton in make and open at the back save for lace ties. A hospital shift then...and the only reason she could identify it was because of her regular doctors’ appointments as a child. Not necessarily because she was in ill health, but because Genesis insisted it was the ‘responsible’ thing to do, and so she’d gone every year for a checkup.

Pain was the second most noticeable sensation.

It wasn’t a full-body pain...more a head pain. Attempting to turn her head produced a flash of bright, white light that had her grimacing in agony. Vaguely...she could remember taking a shortcut to get to where she was going. It was morning then...warm, the sun was high and she’d thought very little of passing through the little empty alleyway in order to reach her destination more quickly. She’d been going to visit Ivvie Grey; a friend from school...though the term ‘friend’ was tenuous. In truth, she’d only contacted Ivvie because she wanted to get away from Genesis for a while...they hadn’t spoken in nearly two years...and Ivvie was as surprised to hear from her as she’d thought she’d be. Her acceptance of her company was grudging...and she’d known it would not be the most pleasant of visits, but it was better than being there...at the apartment. Saoirse couldn’t remember hearing anyone sneak up behind her. Really, she was surprised it had been managed at all. She didn’t have mako in her bloodstream, but she was still the daughter of a genetically enhanced war general; her hearing was excellent.

So...a concussion.

Attempting to move her head again produced the white-light effect, but she carried on for the sake of perseverance, and because there was a distinct sense of urgency that prevailed within her despite the pain. It was difficult, initially. Upon opening her eyes, it proved more difficult because the room swam for a while before coming into focus...and even then it was still disorienting because of its appearance. It was clearly a laboratory, but as far as she knew there were no laboratories left of such caliber on Gaia. Genesis had, briefly, introduced her to the old layout of Shinra via some vague photographs. It was cold...halogen-ridden and impersonal. This room was not any different, and the knowledge that she had woken up in something so archaic was not a little bit disturbing. Sitting up was another task entirely; she had to hold onto the-gurney, she reminded herself, it was called a gurney-with both hands so she could slide her knees up into a relative position.

The problem was that her knees were not moveable.

Not in the full-body sense...merely by inches, and that was because there were leather cuffs strapped around her ankles, cuffs attached to looping chains that were firmly seated in hooks welded to the gurney. Tugging at them was useless; they were firmly attached and buckled in a manner she wasn’t capable of getting at. Disorientation, at this point, was the only thing keeping her from outright panicking. Fighting the urge to be sick, Saorise buried her head in her hands and took several deep breaths. She could throw the top half of herself over the gurney but the degree of her concussion, from what she could tell, was so severe that it would only make her immobile entirely. Fighting more for escape would only tire her...and trying to undo the buckles she had already confirmed was a useless effort. The gurney itself was sloped so she could somewhat adjust her sitting position, but that was all.

It was then that a high, cold laugh filled the room.

In an already frigid atmosphere, to say that the voice only added to the chill was quite the statement. Whoever it was… _whatever_ it was...the expulsion of mirth was not so much joy as it was triumph. It was a grin in an exclamation...a leer through teeth sharper than razor wire, though absent of physical being in metaphor. Simultaneously, the presence that had always been in the back of her mind-the one she now associated with Sephiroth- _exploded_ into panic. It was not the sort of panic that she was prone to feeling; somewhat dulled and tempered by the ability to see it. No, the fear that laced itself across her synapses left her nauseous...like the pit of her stomach had dropped out of her and left her shaking and skinless. It was a vulnerability of self that was not necessarily hers, but it was directed towards her in the sense that it was _terror_ for her. And it made sense that he could utilize their shared...whatever it was, consciously as well as in the Lifestream, but it didn’t make it any less strange and it didn’t make her feel any better.

_”You possess your progenitor’s logic...I see.”_

The voice was high-though not overtly-and rather nasally in its delivery. This would have been comical if there had been an ounce of genuine emotion behind it. Instead...while the voice _sounded_ emotional, there was a coldness to the background that bespoke of nothing but a merciless purpose to its own end.

“Who are you?”

Saoirse flinched as her voice came out more strangled than she’d have liked, but she didn’t stammer. The _’tsk’_ ing noise that was the reply to her query _did_ make her flinch; it was mocking...belittling. Every single bit of it made her feel less of herself than she really was...it made her feel small and insignificant in the face of the _largeness_ of the insanity before her.

 _“Don’t **tell** me your emotionally stunted, vagrant excuse for a **father** didn’t tell you about me!”_.

“Don’t talk about him like that!” Saorise shot back automatically; another soulless chuckle and she shivered again.

 _”You know, I never did see what Sephiroth saw in him. Erratic, **impatient** , the very **definition** degeneracy. Plenty of brains but too much of it focused on the nethers to bring any quality to a partnership. A failure in a genome...really...too much of one thing...too little of another.”_ A pause. _”Good for breeding, of course, but the kind you...resign to parts, right after the coupling.”_ The sigh that followed was over-embellished and without remorse. _”Unfortunately, I never did get to him quickly enough to...remove him from the picture. **I** saw what he was, but Shinra still thought he could provide.”_ Another chuckle. _”I told them to sterilize him, but they didn’t listen now...did they?”_

“He was always good to me,” Saorise insisted fiercely. “ _Always._ ”

 _“Mmm...was he though?”_ a pause, and she flinched away from how the words sunk into her. _”My dear, please forgive me if this is too forthright, but if he hasn’t even **bothered** to tell you about me, how can I not assume that he just didn’t care to tell you anything?”_

It took her a while to put the pieces together.

This was an especially prevalent truth with...Sephiroth having a meltdown in the back of her mind. Saoirse didn’t know how to close him off...she didn’t know how to center herself within herself, and so the bleedover of panic was a constant, niggling thread in her psyche she was forced to slog through and never really shake.

“You’re Hojo,” she said flatly.

 _Hojo_ was delighted.

 _”So he **did** tell you about me”_ was the jeering response. _”My...and he still let you get into this sort of situation did he?”_

“He was always-!” Saorise cut herself off, because to say Genesis was always there for her wasn’t necessarily true. “He loves me” she finished lamely.

 _”In raising a child”_ was the silk-smooth, mock-pitying response. _”Love isn’t always enough.”_

“Like you’d know all about that!” Saorise protested, her teeth bared. “I _know_ what you did. I know what you are!”

 _”When it comes to raising a child”_ Hojo jabbered on as if he hadn’t heard her. _”One must not just occasionally comfort, but **instruct**.”_ When Saoirse didn’t reply he kept going. _”Don’t you know what you are, my dear?”_

“I’m me,” Saoirse replied. “And _only_ me, and I’m not going to listen to you!”

 _”You’re so much more than that”_ Hojo replied, in a tone that was deceivingly gentle. _“You are the last in a long line of ancient beings from another planet. You have powers beyond your **reckoning**_.”

Saorise laughed because it was ridiculous.

She knew, of course, that the case of her birth was not entirely similar to everyone else. Having two Dads sort of nixed that impression in the bud quite early on. But she, _Saoirse Rhapsodos_ , did not have any special powers, she got below-average grades and she had no friends.

“Well” she chortled. “I hate to tell you this, but whatever _power_ any of my ancestors had, I’m pretty sure I’m a dud. So why don’t you send me home?”

She told herself her voice didn’t waver on the word ‘home.’

 _”You’ve simply not been permitted to access the parts of you that have such...aptitude”_ was the nasally response. _”Rhapsodos limited you, **restricted** you to normalcy when you were born for greater things.”_ Yet another pause. _”Didn’t you ever wonder why...beyond your father’s death...didn’t you ever wonder why people seemed to have a near-automatic aversion to you save for those close to you?”_ Again, she didn’t reply, and again, Hojo pressed on. _”You never wondered why you felt so strange...amongst so many people who seemed the same? Why you could never just **fit in?** ”_

The narrative rang true to her.

It rang true...but in a way that was dull and hollow. Because while Hojo might have been able to offer her a window into herself...or so he claimed...he would never understand the things sacrificed in order to get there. Saoirse had seen what the bitterness and resentment of others...what sadness could make people do. And what of limitless power? What was the cosmos in the face of loneliness and lack of community...however small hers was? Hojo...and those like him, could not understand the intrinsic value of family beyond the scope of their own ends. And there was a _part_ of her, a lonely and desperate part that wanted to believe what he said...because it had spent so much time believing it was worthless. There was a part of her that was _hungry_ for that sort of affirmation...and it battled with the logical part of her that stated such affirmation was not worth the price she would have to pay...or what she would have to lose.

There was also the fact that Hojo didn’t seem to know Sephiroth was alive.

 _”Just think”_ he was saying. _”The **world** would be at your fingertips...if you would only let me give it to you.”_

Taking a deep, shuddering breath and closing her eyes, Saoirse shook her head.

“I don’t want the world,” she whispered. “I don’t care what sights it has to offer, or what I’d learn from it. I don’t care about power. There’s better things than that, things that last longer, that give you more.”

The anger was expected.

The pain...not so much.

When it came to the leather ankle cuffs...their purpose was only made fully clear when something dug into the skin beneath them. All the way ‘round her ankles, jagged, lancing needlepoints of pain dug into flesh and then _pierced_...a trickle of bright and blue flowed down to the sole of her right foot and she heard herself scream as though distantly. Inside her mind...the cry echoed itself back...seemed to split apart in a kaleidoscope of grief and despair and _guilt_.

 _”Well”_ Hojo drawled as the pain crawled up her leg to tear its way through her system. _”If it’s not something you’ll set free in the sense of **let**....”_

__”...Perhaps it's something I can make you **forget.** ”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** Whelp, I finished this- _might have gone back and written it from Saoirse's POV_ -and then I realized that I would need to split it again and write the next part from Seph's. And _then_ I realized I only have five more chapters to finish this.
> 
> So this might have been a heavy derp.
> 
> Have this problem [see the Big Lazy-Distractible-Slightly Dim], where if chapters get too long I can't concentrate long enough to edit them. My brain does this _*aughh!*_ thing. [wilhelm scream, essentially]. think the next part will go over better in Seph's POV regardless. thanks for reading and have an...acceptable Monday [saying 'great' feels like putting Monday under too much pressure].
> 
> * I keep misspelling Saoirse. It’s driving me crazy, believe me.


	21. Chapter 21

Saoirse’s disappearance was a somewhat dissociated experience. 

Initially, in any case; it took some time for the reality of the situation to sink in. Not because Sephiroth didn’t care, but because the high-paced, catastrophic nature of the beginning moment was so emotionally charged his psyche rejected it and forced him to be objective. It was SOLDIER training at its finest and likely its most heinous; because while he could shove it down for the moment, there was no telling how it would affect him at a later date. This meant that while Genesis lost his head entirely, he was able to somewhat formulate a trajectory when it came to systematic damage control. It was hard, he found, to put any sort of actual ‘damage control’ into play because whatever had been set in motion had already-presumably-run its course. Saoirse had been apprehended and he was forced to assume that had been the main objective. 

The best course of action at the time was interrogating Valentine. 

Despite the fact that Sephiroth didn’t really know why he was there beyond a supposed paternal obligation, he was the individual who was supposed to surveill Saoirse, as far as he could tell. He hadn’t gotten the chance to ask Genesis about him, and despite the fact the man seemed to flinch every time the former General looked at him, he was clearly a trained professional. His _own_ training had long ago taught him to look for such things in posture and gesture; Valentine’s gestures placed him squarely in the now-dismantled Turk Division. In truth, it was the one thing that baffled him because he didn’t know his full story save that he might possibly be his father and potential parentage had never gotten him hung up before. 

There was a distinct communicational hobble between them. 

Said hobble was mostly sequestered to the fact that Valentine was barely able to meet his eyes. Normally, Sephiroth would have immediately interpreted such evasion as dishonesty, but he was more prone to chalk it up to their potential history. He didn’t sense fear from the gunslinger, but he did sense a deep anxiety and uncertainty, and he didn’t have the time or the desire to sway his impression of him. At the moment, he had a hysterical...co-parent who was sitting on the steps dialing what seemed to be a plethora of numbers at his disposal. He recognized Tseng’s voice at one point, via enhanced hearing...Aerith’s in another. A part of him wondered why the redhead hadn’t bothered to call Angeal but the answer to that became clear when the owner of the former Buster Sword came tearing up the way in a police cruiser with all of its lights activated and the siren blaring. 

The macabre part of him found it fittingly humorous. 

Law enforcement that is, for Hewley, even if it was hard to find a sincere optimism in it at the time. Angeal came stumbling out of the cab looking just about as terrified as Genesis, and the woman that exited the passenger seat with more grace but no less concern on her face, was someone he again didn’t recognize. Likewise, when Aerith and Zack arrived in the same vehicle and emerged together...stopping at one point to join hands before hurrying to meet the others...he was once again brutally reminded of how much he had missed. Genesis’ sister looked a bit older, though not by much...Angeal and Zack appeared much the same as they had before. It was a bit of a disturbing facade...really, the concept of not aging and therefore never really changing...but all of them had changed somewhat fundamentally. Sephiroth couldn’t even safely say that _he_ had not changed. Despite his time in the Lifestream, he really had no place declaring that his awareness of it did not alter the way he looked at the world. The phrase _’death changes people’_ had never held more truth to him. 

He had to learn about Thierry the hard way. 

Mostly by asking numerous questions in regards to his actions when his name popped up...which it did, soon after the subject of his consciousness being stored in a super computer did. The idea of a technological copy of his consciousness was disturbing, mostly because his mind was already such a tenuous arena of space that the idea of another version of himself existing elsewhere was heinous. More than that, it only added solidity to the concept that he’d been taught from birth; that he was disposable and entirely replaceable. He’d long ago learned that earning Hojo’s respect was a task he would never accomplish, but it was still disconcerting even if it wasn’t a surprise whatsoever. Likewise, the concept of there being copies of him was just as disconcerting, but he had the niggling feeling that they either didn’t exist or were somehow subpar to the real thing, because Hojo would have acted at this point if he had numerous versions of himself in which to demand submission from the world. 

He was reluctant, like Genesis, to think of Thierry as a person. 

Mostly because he seemed to be more of an entity than an individual. Sephiroth was no stranger to the fact that there were metaphorical euphemisms of self versus the actual self. There was Jenova, for example. _Self_ when applied to an alien blight from the cosmos was reaching a little bit far. The more it was explained to him, the less it felt like ‘necromancy’ or ‘magic’, and the more it felt like a smokescreen for Hojo and Jenova. It was easy to pin it on some ancient, higher power...but sometimes the truth of the matter was directly forefront but masterfully shielded. Hojo had done everything in his power to confuse them...to lead them down the wrong track. He was fairly sure that the dissolution of Deepground had been a major blow that he’d been forced to come up with a sort of...smoke and mirrors ploy in order to deceive them. Sephiroth was _also_ sure that it came down to the planet and its livelihood, but if he could help it, it would never need to get that far. 

Vincent was, as it turned out, a wealth of information in other areas. 

Those areas turned out to be pertaining to things called ‘Weapons’ that the planet would activate if it thought that something was trying to destroy it. Sephiroth was vaguely aware of the Weapons and their purpose, but most of the populace tended to dismiss such things as legend. This he counted a blessing, because they had to decide if the situation was dire enough that waking the weapons was a risk. If he had been able to sense Jenova in his psyche, he would have said yes, without question. At this point, he was cogent enough to acknowledge that Hojo had had a means to an end for the duration of his lifespan, and he had only _missed_ that means via his death, however temporary. More frightening was the idea that Hojo had perhaps _anticipated_ that he would not meet up to mark. And with that anticipation came his facilitation of Saoirse. It was a stain not on his child, but on her birth...on the idealism of choice. Because if Hojo decided he could use Saoirse against them, neither he nor Genesis would be capable of acting against her. 

There was also the fact that if Saoirse did not comply, she would die for her noncompliance. 

This did not concern him so much as the lengths Hojo would go to to gain her obedience before he decided she was a lost cause. Sephiroth was not a stranger to the things the bespectacled madman would do if he was dissatisfied with a test subject. He had once been such a test subject, and no matter how successful he had become, the cold fact that he could not erase the frigid memories of his time in the Science Division haunted him. So it was that when he sensed _fear_ across the small but still-present mental bond he had with his daughter, and when he could _feel_ who it was she was dealing with, all semblance of stoic control left him. This was a rather restrained manner of saying that he practically ran out of the little collective gathering they had assembled in Gillian Hewley’s house. Because he could not, _would not_ let Saoirse suffer what he had suffered. A part of him driven entirely by despair and confusion dominated his psyche long enough that he was entirely irrational in his thought process. 

He could feel her fighting him and that only terrified him more. 

Because the more defiant Saoirse was, the worse the results would be. And he admired it in her, he did. Because as a child he had learned that standing up to Hojo meant dreadful pain and suffering. Even when he didn’t stand up to him he was still met with suffering and Saoirse had _so much_ of Genesis’ spirit. The presence of the hive mind in correlation with his daughter hadn’t really occurred to him until a major emotion of hers bled through...but now that it had...he surmised that he would be able to find a way to her through it. It would be impossible to determine her location via sight alone...wherever Hojo was...it was somewhere they were unfamiliar with. There were no more laboratories beneath Shinra and the facility in the sea near Costa Del Sol had been destroyed. He didn’t think that he’d have been able to go far; not with so many prior plans having been thwarted, and you couldn’t build an endless array of laboratories across the planet. _Where_ he had taken Saoirse, however, was still a mystery and the longer it remained a mystery the more panicked he became. 

“-roth! _Sephiroth!_ ” 

It took the aforementioned man a moment to realize that he was standing on the front lawn for all the world to see with his wing in full display. 

There was someone hanging onto his arm like it was the last thing good and gold on this earth, and it took him some moments longer to acknowledge that it was Genesis that had his bicep in a death grip. He could sense-without looking-the presence of others behind them...observing in a kind of shocked torpor. And that sense of _urgency_ did not abate. It in fact only grew stronger as _pain_ bled into the hive mind and he heard himself growl even as he tried to shove Genesis away to no success. 

“I can _feel_ her” he snapped at the older man. “He has her, Genesis, he’s _hurting_ her!” The noise that left the redhead was a strangled, terrible and nearly inhumane exclamation of despair and fear. Yet still...the scarlet-haired former hung on to him...kept him from going. “We could go together,” he continued desperately. “Genesis, we _have_ to-!” 

“Go where?!” was the hysterical reply. _”Go where Sephiroth?!”_

Realizing that his perhaps-former partner was close to total mental breakdown was both familiar and yet oddly foreign. Mostly because it was a breakdown of a scale that he’d never seen Genesis go through before. He was pale, but more than that, there was a very-barely restrained thread of hysteria that seemed just below the surface of his skin. Sapphire eyes were red-rimmed and wild, that flame-colored hair disheveled atop a head that was normally more meticulous about its appearance. It was the first time Sephiroth allowed himself to acknowledge that Genesis was thinner than he remembered him being. Not in a sense of lack of strength, but in a sense that he likely never ate enough and never slept enough to be fully cognizant and functional. Genesis-he surmised-was in no fit state to go into battle...if there would be a battle. He wasn’t entirely sure if _he_ was in a fit state to go to battle. He was better-he thought angrily at himself-at tactics than this. 

That, of course, didn’t matter when the next wave of pain roared into the hive mind...and he recognized it. 

Specifically, he recognized the pain as that which was correlated with mako-infusion, and everything in regards to logic and tactics was obliterated from his mind. Taking to the sky was easy...ripping himself from Genesis again was _easy_ in comparison to the prevention of what had already been done to him being done to his daughter. The Hewley house fell away...the sunset was a glittering...starless _red_ and he did not know where he was going, but something _in_ him knew where he was going. There were shouts from below...the familiar, somewhat heart-wrenching sound of Genesis unfurling his wing to follow. He wanted to tell him that there was no point...that whatever this was, he would _end_ it at its source. Dust particles were figmented...glittering points of light upon his ascent...showering downwards and outwards in a great spiral but he paid it no heed...because there was greater need. Need to defend what was _his_. 

This mantra followed him perhaps two hundred miles to the East. 

It didn’t particularly occur to him that it wasn’t much different from what Jenova’s tauntings had felt like before until Genesis managed to catch up with him and knock him out of the sky. He supposed in retrospect that the populace was panicking spectacularly at the sight of two large winged beings leaving Midgar at breakneck speed but he’d never been much able to see the bigger picture in moments of focus...whether that focus was positive or negative. And _’knocked out of the sky’_ was a bit of a dramatic terminology because Genesis merely knocked him into the hull of a chopper and then pinned him down to the iron fittings until all the air was squeezed out of his lungs. The sensation of _being_ in a chopper was so jarring that the fact he had _missed_ it ‘sneaking’ up on him didn’t cross his mind until several moments later. There were angry, _very angry_ sapphire eyes glaring into his and a glance to the left and right told him that Aerith was a co-passenger and Zack and Angeal were piloting the air-bound vessel. The latter threw them two pairs of headphones and the silver-haired man winced as his were shoved onto his head in a manner non-too-gentle. 

“I was under the impression that helicopters were not as fast as me,” Sephiroth said stupidly. 

“I had one commissioned,” Genesis replied in a sweet voice that was not sweet at all. “Just in case you managed to pull your sorry ass from the grave and try a stunt like this.” 

The General blinked. 

“That’s… _very_ impressive” he said not-at-all-helpfully. 

The smile he received in return was more of a barred-teeth snarl. 

“Do you _know_ how many security protocols you just broke, Seph?” A pause. “Let _alone_ the absolutely fucking cataclysmic degree of _panic_ the populace is now going through?!”

“Saoirse-” Sephiroth interrupted. 

_”-Saoirse’s been kidnapped and you’re vaulting into the stratosphere trying to play the goddamn hero in a situation that is flying **blind!**_ ” 

“It might be exactly what Hojo wants” Aerith cut in hastily. “Sephiroth...when you left you didn’t...you didn’t feel right.” A helpless gesture. “You felt like you did before you destroyed part of Midgar after Genesis succumbed to degradation...I couldn’t feel Jenova...but it was something like her.” 

The desire to pitch himself off the edge of the helicopter was suddenly so strong that he only fought it through sheer force of will. Some of his desperation must have been apparent...and familiar, because Genesis’ lips became a thin line and he pressed him down all the harder. 

“You’re not going anywhere, Seph...not this time. And _nothing_ you say to me is going to make me play into any scheme you’ve cooked up to take yourself out of the picture.” 

“I nearly jeopardized everything,” he said despairingly. “Genesis, I can’t _recognize_ it when it’s happening! That puts all of us at risk!” 

The aforementioned man seemed to struggle monumentally with himself before he grimaced and reached forward. For a breathless moment Sephiroth thought he was going to kiss him-and that would have been inappropriate, really-but he only switched his headset to a different channel and then followed suit with his own. 

“I don’t know what it’s like to share your mind with so many people” was the gruff response. “I’m not gonna pretend I do, I don’t. And it frankly seems like something straight out of a horror movie based on what I’ve seen so far. But Seph, I’m not going to throw you out on your ass or let you throw _you_ out on your ass because your impulse control is fucking terrible.”

“You’d have a right to” the younger man replied despairingly, staring at the divots in the metal ceiling above them. “You have all the grounds you need to claim Saoirse as entirely yours...no one would contest it, and I’d deserve it.” 

“What am I going to do Seph?” Genesis replied despairingly. “Blackmail you into silence, solitude, and fatherlessness because I’ve got more leverage? Making us _both_ liars, just giving me a better deck of cards to play against you?” A shake of a scarlet head. “Look honey, I know Shinra was all for coercion, but I’m not gonna take something you value from you just because you had a bad time of it and freaked the fuck out. Considering the circumstances, you had a right to. To say that I have more of a say in something we both created because I think I know better than you, that I _understand_ the situation better than you...well, that ain’t cutting the chase Seph, that’s just theft hiding under the guise of moral.”

A fist thumped his chest-though not hard-and Genesis settled over him more fully. 

“Hojo taught you that you were worthless, and that what you are would limit you in the world because people would eventually see what you are and discard you. It worked for him that way, see, because if you thought you were dangerous, you never got close to anyone. And, yeah, there’s been times in the past that you scared the absolute shit out of me.” Guilt, agony, and self-loathing suffused him; some of it must have shown on his face because the redhead leaned down until they were but inches from one another. A wealth of his hair was gathered in adroit fingers and Genesis breathed out even as he pressed their foreheads together, sapphire eyes locking with viridian. “But I will _never_ do that to you. You’d have to kill me first.”

The emotions that crossed the younger man’s mind were impossible to pick apart entirely; mostly because they seemed to be a coagulated conglomerate of regret, affection, and mild resignation. He could tell that Genesis wanted to tell him to think of himself otherwise but there was only so much he could say, some of it Sephiroth had to discern in himself _for_ himself. 

“I don’t see how I can help with this when I’m clearly compromised” he replied flatly. 

“Yeah and that pisses me the hell off” was the angry reply. “Because you’re _not_ compromised, you’re just stubborn and you refuse to see that if the hive mind works one way, it’ll work the other way too...you’ve just got to figure that out.” When Sephiroth looked-or so he imagined-gobsmacked at this realization, sapphire eyes nearly rolled out of their sockets. “It was Aerith’s idea, actually, and it wasn’t obvious to me until she mentioned it...but now I feel kinda stupid for not thinking of it first.” 

If Genesis felt stupid, Sephiroth felt asinine. 

Because despite the fact that it was now obvious, he _still didn’t know how to do it_. He said as much out loud and he was fixed with a look that was as close to sympathetic-when-Genesis-is-angry as he was going to get. The older man then reached forward and switched the channel on his headset back to the main line. 

“Aerith, what were you saying earlier about Seph and the Lifestream?” 

“Mostly that he’s the only person to have been physically resurrected from it, ever” was the gentle reply as Aerith shifted in her seat. 

“Lucrecia” Sephiroth pointed out even as Genesis got off him only to haul him up with one hand and shunt him over to a seat so he could strap him in. 

“Lucrecia is a bit of an anomaly” was the quiet agreement. “I’ve been to visit her” Aerith added, her tone apologetic. “When we thought you were...gone. She’s not dead, but she’s not alive...not like any of us. What she is...it’s almost like an impression of her left behind. That cave is made of mako crystals, mako is the planet’s life force and a great majority of her life force coagulated there...froze there because that’s where she was when she died. It’s not so much her as it is her spirit.” A shrug. “I couldn’t say...neither could she. When I...when I told her about you...Sephiroth...she stopped talking. I’ve been to see her several times since, and she won’t say a word. She’s there, but whatever willpower that gave her the ability to reach out...it died with you.” 

Sephiroth didn’t know how to feel about that. 

Lucrecia hadn’t been in his life...but she had still been his biological mother. There was a part of him that worried about her absence whether he wanted it to worry or not. Likewise, there was a part of him that dismissed her entirely...the way she had dismissed his ability to choose how he wanted to live. 

“How does me dying help us?” he asked instead, taking the focus away from Lucrecia. 

“I think...with some help...the Lifestream might aid you” Aerith replied. “Not in the sense of being indebted to you, but in the sense of recognition.” When Sephiroth opened her mouth to refute her suggestion...she raised a hand. “The spirits in the Lifestream aren’t cogent enough to understand anything based on word form...but you were able to understand some of it with your mind...even so. Enough to remain cognizant of yourself among it.” 

“But do I have to _die again_ to ask for help?” Sephiroth asked drily. 

At this, Aerith smiled just a bit and her eyes glittered fondly. 

“No,” she said amusedly. “You just need someone with a strong enough connection to the Planet to help you.” 

“And you’re willing to help me?” 

“Goodness no, I’m not half as strong as some people seem to think I am.” A nod at Genesis. “ _He’s_ the one brimming with interplanetary magic, if you haven’t noticed.” 

“Thanks to events prior, I’m about as religious as a turnip” Genesis cut in, seemingly thrown off-kilter himself. “Aerith, if anyone has a connection to the Planet, it’s you.” 

“The Planet talks to me” was the agreed statement. “But Genesis...the Planet _listens_ to you, it _feels_ with you.” 

“In the Forgotten City” Sephiroth said after several long silent minutes. “When you…” he hesitated and glanced uncertainly at Genesis. “When you were...unhappy, the shell split down the middle...there was rain.” 

“That’s a _very_ large sympathetic response” Aerith said, sounding surprised. “You never mentioned that, Genesis.” 

“It didn’t seem important” the redhead muttered. “And that’s great, but it still doesn’t tell me how I _talk_ to Gaia-the Planet- _whatever_.”

“Maybe you need to be upset,” Sephiroth suggested. 

The look he was given in response was a bit manic.

 _”I am **very** upset”_ Genesis snarled. 

“-Maybe you should just try _talking_ to the Planet” Aerith said, sounding a bit worried. 

“If you think I haven’t-!” 

“- _Without_ poetry.” The redhead opened his mouth to argue before seeming to catch himself before he looked at the ground somewhat indignantly. “With dignity and not with...excessive flair” Aerith pressed on carefully. 

“You can say fanaticism” Genesis said loudly as Angeal coughed a little too obviously over the intercom. 

“It can’t hurt,” his sibling insisted. “Just try.” A pause and she seemed to correct herself. “Maybe hold onto Sephiroth’s hand while you do it.” 

“Uh huh” the redhead muttered, lowering himself into the seat next to the aforementioned man and grabbing his hand. “Sure, I’ll just try this radical bullshit and hope for the very absolute best, shall I?” 

“That’s the idea” Aerith replied, amusement coloring her tone again. “Though not the _’radical’_ part.” 

“Right” Genesis huffed, leaning back and closing his eyes. “Well, I’m going to think _very hard_ at the planet now, you’ll have to excuse me.” 

Sephiroth thought it was all a bit ridiculous but fell silent in any case. 

Several long minutes passed with little change, and it only solidified his cynicism. Aerith switched channels so she could speak briefly with Zack and the silver-haired First pretended not to notice that Angeal was shooting him furtive glances from the cockpit. They weren’t exactly friendly glances either, and he knew that they would eventually have to discuss things privately. Ten minutes bled into fifteen...fifteen into twenty...twenty into thirty and he began to suspect that Genesis had fallen asleep because his features went entirely slack...relaxed like they never were in moments of consciousness. At the hour mark he began to fuss with the buckles tethering him to his seat with one hand; Angeal was clearly looking for a place to land and Aerith seemed a bit nervous, something he chalked up to not flying often. He’d just given it up for a lost cause when there was a yanking sensation behind his eyes that had him jerking straight upwards in his seat. It didn’t last long...but it was such a persistent and strong feeling it immediately forced him into high-alert. For some minutes, it didn’t happen again...but when it did it wasn’t much different from being yanked out of his body and into the ether...into a sea of whispering green and a runner of black, a poisoned river of aquamarine and obsidian churning through the core of perpetuity... 

...and it _knew him_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** Just a note here, it’s been more harder [mOrE hArDeR]- _harder_ , nix the more-to reclaim this than anticipated so am probably going to repost on ffn. got this wild idea to do an audiobook for readers as a kind of workaround adaptation but my voice has a rough timbre/don’t use it much in the RL setting so I lost it in the first two paragraphs, my vocal cords collapsed with exhaustion and I couldn’t use them for several hours, which was kind of hilarious but also kind of embarrassing so I put that idea in the trashcan. But, at this point I’m at peace with it and reposting 50 chapters just to say they’re mine feels extraneous. 
> 
> *I’ve played the new FF game, I enjoyed it, but I ultimately didn’t find anything I’d want to take away from or embellish regarding it. My goal as a ficwriter lies pretty heavily in the area of emotionalism, and to change this story to fit in with the current plotline is something I’m choosing not to do. I love FF, and I love where it’s going, but I don’t want to get stuck. I don't know if I'm going to be able to finish this is four chapters. We'll see. Have a great weekend.
> 
> *There were some errors in here pointed out to me. These I did fix as soon as I could.


	22. Chapter 22

Genesis had never considered-beyond a certain point in his past-the act of communing with the Planet as essential.

Realistically, if there was a school for those adept in connectivity with Gaia, he’d likely have been in the corner wearing a dunce hat. He’d have been thrilled to have worn that dunce hat, because it was better than being a fanatical sycophant. During his youth, he’d never had too much of a ‘faith’ at all; he couldn’t have, to have so heavy a belief in Soldier and not see the negative effect the organization had upon the populace. Once he’d _joined_ Soldier, however, his illusionment in regards to belief had grown to ameliorate his gradual but inevitable _dis_ illusionment with the company he was working for.

It was easier to give everything up to the idea of a mystical ‘grand scale’ plan...something bigger than him ...because then he didn’t have to face what he was doing or what he was becoming. Likewise, when it became crystal clear to him that Shinra was corrupt down to its rotting core, he turned to Gaia somewhat more heavily because the alternative was giving in to utter and complete despair. The description of it-of that mental process-in the present moment seemed simple, but to the man so brainwashed by every militarian piece of dogma shoved down his throat since he’d begun to _dream_ of serving, it was not so simple.

His death had changed his view of Gaia.

Not because he ceased to believe, but because he genuinely believed that Gaia was everything and everyone. It was less about personification in the form of a deity as it was the embodiment of spiritual energy from everything that had ever lived and that which was currently living. _He_ was as much Gaia as anyone else, save for his ability to connect with the planet. Genesis was of the mind that communing with the Planet was not so much a special ability as it was a latent one; one that had slowly died out over generations of disuse.

Why else-he reasoned-would the Planet come to anyone’s aid...to its own aid? Why help a hopelessly and relentlessly destructive race further its own end when it would be easier to pick up...to move to another planet somewhat like Jenova had...and continue on? If Gaia was deity, her purpose was mercurial at best, dismissable at worst. And dying was not this cataclysmic...tunnel-like impression that he’d often imagined. During his degradation...it was just a wash...a wash of green and a sense of oneness. The impression of oneness...of being energy and not consciousness, was tolerable in death. Sephiroth had echoed such a view when he’d asked about being dead for so long. It wasn’t so much a hive mind as it was a collective sense of nothing.

Nothing, he had found in his brief moments of immortality, was _peaceful_.

It was why he was sometimes angry at Sephiroth for never letting him go. Because to face that peace, to _have_ it, averse to the agony life had brought him...during the years after the younger man’s death he had deeply resented that because it was a hypocrisy. Sephiroth had fought harder for him than he had ever been willing to fight for himself and he’d come to acknowledge it as an internalized self-loathing foisted upon him. Time, however, had taught him that it was not self-loathing so much as it was the fact that Genesis had given him so much in the face of a childhood inundated with hatred and pain. He had accepted him, wholeheartedly, so of course he was going to put him on a pedestal and run himself rugged to make him happy; Genesis was the only happiness Sephiroth had known in a very, very long time. It wasn’t a healthy sort of happiness, if he considered it objectively. They would need to grow from that, if they were ever going to grow at all, and that would take time. So much of the older man’s narrative carried a focus on equanimity, but the truth was that they were individuals and he needed to let Sephiroth discover himself before they were so enmeshed again that they didn’t know who they were.

Enmeshed love was fatuous love; and fatuous love carried with it an element of decay.

This was all, of course, irrelevant without stopping Hojo.

As a rush of molten, flaming ephemera brushed past his face by inches...Genesis reflected that _stopping_ was not so much a necessity as _incapacitating_ was. The air around him was awash with dark fire; he could smell the singed and vaguely unpleasant scent of charred feathers but that pain was negligible to the pain in his heart. Veritably, it was his heart _split open_ because it had come to this...and he should have known better but he hadn’t. The world was a seething, effervescent and yet somehow shrouded hail of grey...of raining ash and fire and he did not know if anything existed outside of it...if there was a point in existing, even...he could only know _now_ and he had learnt better than to look ahead. Rapier was heavy in his hand...how he had come by it again was less of a mystery than how Sephiroth had come to wield Masamune, especially with the current situation in mind but the blade itself was singing that ethereal and deadly tune...and yet this time it did not herald destruction.

Verily, neither of them had drawn their blades to attack, more to _deflect_.

It wasn’t communing with the Planet that had brought them to this point.

When it came to talking to a probably-not-entity, there were figurative aspects to it that he’d have rather forgotten, but all in all it went rather smoothly. As smoothly as a metaphorical tete-a-tete with an amalgamation of the dead and living could really go. Aerith had always described the process of communing with Gaia as an ephemeral, almost-sensation-based unity. The idea, at the time, had repulsed him because it felt like a form of indebtedness solely based on his ability to have a chat with dead people. And, realistically, that was what it was; the Will of something he could only call ‘life’ utilizing energy to give an impression of a state of desired being. It was a trance-like state that focused as much inward as it did outward...and within that coagulated awareness he was still himself, but he could also perceive a sensation of ‘otherness.’

‘Will’ was a loose terminology for focus.

That was as simply as Genesis could define it; a focus towards biological perpetuity and growth coupled with semi-awareness of every facet of vitality that affected that forward motion. It was continuity in an interlaced, spherical vector lit up in an effervescent green. At the time it was all around him; not necessarily _within_ him, but he was _of_ it in his own individualized sense. Sephiroth he could perceive due to his nearness, but it was more of a concept of Sephiroth’s energy rather than a carbon-copy of his physical self. Realistically, it wasn’t much different from when he died...but it was more _peaceful_ than when he died...because he was looking at all of it with a mind that was still very much alive.

To call it _’beautiful’_ felt extraneous; but _’peaceful’_ was a word he could get behind. Identifying Saoirse’s signature outside the Lifestream was Sephiroth’s job, and he wasn’t entirely sure how he did it. It was a conversation they hadn’t been able to have, as of the current moment, and of less urgency. What mattered was that the former General found her...among a threaded current of bluish emerald...and when he pulled them out of that trance-like state, the younger man didn’t speak for the entirety of the rest of their flight to their destination.

Their destination was-somewhat dismally ironically-the former site of Shinra Manor.

Genesis wanted to kick himself for not setting patrols there but with their resources spread so thin and what they had thought was the entire building dismantled, there was really no point in it. There were scheduled flyovers once every couple of months, but there was nothing to look at but an expanse of blank soil...and so he’d thought nothing of it. During the brief flight, he had an unfortunate conversation with Tseng, which revealed that none other than his adoptive ‘father’ had bought the grounds under private contract...specifically, a contract using finances in _Genesis’_ name stating that he was owed the remainder of his stipend to do what he liked because of his ‘contribution to the city.’

 ** _*”Legally, you could fight it”_** he was informed over the poorly tuned-in helicopter radio. **_*”But I’ll be frank with you, there’s not much left of the fund. And we didn’t think to monitor spending in regards to your stipend due to your income coming from a different source. If you choose to fight it now, you’d have to reveal everything about the nature of your relationship with Sephiroth, your duties in Shinra, your history, your connection with the Jenova Project. It would expose you to public scrutiny and not a little bit of vitriol. The public is barely tolerant of the remainders of Shinra now, this would only dig up old bones for the sake of defending your name in order to simultaneously destroy it.”*_**

It wasn’t worth it.

Genesis _hated_ admitting it wasn’t worth it, but he had Saoirse to consider...even if she wasn’t there and he didn’t particularly know if she was going to be okay. By engaging legally with Shikro over a dispute of financial ownership he didn’t risk only himself, he risked his daughter as well...her future...her reputation. It didn’t matter if it was criminal, and beyond criminal, indicative of his association with Hojo...or at least the fact that he had sold the property to Hojo and mismanaged the funds post-sale. Challenging Shikro would mean throwing his life into an even greater state of upheaval than it already was...and it wasn’t worth it.

The technicality Shikro had based ownership upon was flimsy because of how corrupt Shinra was and how little in _reality_ Soldier had contributed to society. More than that, the amount of dogmatic and psychic whitewashing Shinra did to their employees really didn’t put Genesis in a square state of mind to have agreed to anything during that time, but the price of comeuppance wasn’t really comeuppance. And throwing away his familial reputation for the sake of a very small payout possessed by someone who had belittled him and dismissed him-however professionally it was done in the face of the public-was not something he was willing to do.

Saoirse’s state of wellbeing became apparent almost immediately upon touchdown.

Mostly because Sephiroth made a strange grunting noise, went white, and then clutched at his head like he could somehow drive whatever was in it away by figuratively boxing his own ears. They didn’t have to look to find the entrance to what Genesis assumed was an underground compound. Didn’t have to...because what they were _looking_ for came looking for them. As Angeal had stepped out onto hard-packed soil, the redheaded former First had taken but a single step towards Sephiroth when the sky became a conflagration of blue and white...when-so it seemed-the cosmos lit up in an irradiation of color with a singular, burning source that he couldn’t really see amongst the light…

...He couldn’t see her...but he _knew_ it was her because of who she was to him.

Mako, when put into the wrong hands, was an effective persuasive device.

 _’Persuasion’_ was really the wrong word for torture.

And...realistically, he’d given Hojo all the tools needed to sway Saoirse-even if it was somewhat unwillingly-merely by not being a part of her life like he should have been. This tortured him more than the ground before them opening on two sides...like a glowing, gaping maw only to spit forth his daughter in a hail of white feathers and blazing purple eyes. It hurt more than seeing her silhouetted against the sky...not-unlike the silver-haired man struggling to stand against what he could only assume was a mental onslaught of catastrophic proportions.

It hurt more than seeing the somewhat distant and glittering ephemera of a perfectly equipped facility below...complete with mako tanks and a direct conduit into the earth. It hurt more than seeing the briefest flash of a bespectacled...maddened face before Angeal made a sound he had never heard him make before; that of a wounded, enraged animal. It left his lips and carried across the space between and his childhood friend disappeared into that luminescent...antiseptic void only to have it snap shut behind him and they were left...Sephiroth, Aerith, and Genesis...to face what _Genesis_ had unleashed upon all of them.

_**”All things must come to an end.”** _

He didn’t know the voice.

It wasn’t _her_ voice, and that gave him some hope...because _maybe_ Saoirse was still in there somewhere. Sephiroth, however, seemed to know the voice intrinsically. He must have...because when _’it’_ spoke he lurched into an upright position and if looks could kill his would have _decimated_. It was a boiling, unchecked revulsion etched onto every inch of those beautiful features; feral and not a little bit unhinged...overshadowed by a terrible fear. And it _wasn’t_ Saoirse...not really; it was her body...maybe some shattered, broken semblance of her left inside, but the glare of those eyes was familiar...it was all too familiar and despair was an icy claw digging into his chest with more force than that of the djinn from so many, _many_ years before.

“You haven’t won.”

Sephiroth’s voice was barely discernible over the gale...over the cataclysmic shift in the environment around them. It was little more than a whisper over a wail...but the deadened...unnaturally flat tone of it carried further than anything he could have shouted would have.

 _ **”When will you learn that it’s not about winning or losing?”**_ the tender, faux-affection in that voice made him shudder...but what made him shudder _more_ was the realization that it was more than one voice; it was Thierry’s voice...what he could only assume was _Jenova’s_ voice...all threaded into one.

“ _You_ did this” Genesis growled. _”You’ve_ brought everything to where it is now!”

The laugh he received in return seemed to echo into eternity. It was less of a laugh than a gleeful shriek of maniacal mirth that seemed to explode forth and wash across them in a dark and relentless tide. Somehow...there was power behind the action, though it didn’t seem to affect Sephiroth as much as it did Genesis. The redhead could only assume it was his connection to the planet that made it such an insidious, bone-breaking sensation...he both resented and appreciated the reality of it...because while it was painful, it also told him that he would at least know how the Planet would react a little bit ahead of time.

 _ **”You did this to yourselves”**_ was the purred rebuttal. _**”Trying to subjugate nature to the miniscule purpose of your insignificant whims.”**_

“There’s nothing _natural_ about you” Sephiroth scoffed. “You’re empty...you’re filled with **nothing** but the desire to consume, I _know_ your will as much, if not to a greater degree, than you know mine.” A sneer. “You are intrinsically simplistic to discern because your purpose is simple, and your purpose is _anhillation_.”

“Genesis!” Aerith cried out from the cockpit where she and Zack had taken over Angeal’s position. “Genesis she’s going to wake the Weapons if this keeps going! The Planet _feels_ her!”

He could feel it too.

Now that he knew what the Planet felt like, ignoring it was impossible. It was a little bit like tapping into an electrical outlet that you couldn’t unplug yourself from once the connection was made. The Lifestream was a gentle...swerving froth underneath his conscious level of awareness...but now it was a panicked _boil_. Like a pot left on the stove overtly long...it was a roil of something that whispered _’defend’_ , but he knew that in that defense there would be little to nothing left of what existed _now_.

The Weapons were designed as a last-resort failsafe, and while he understood the need for them, he could also acknowledge that their existence _threatened_ the existence of everyone else on the Planet. If the Planet felt moved to strike back, Jenova would consume it. It was really the perfect method of stalking prey, if he wanted to get super animalistic about it; because the apex predator-Jenova, in this case-would wait until the Planet reacted at its basest and most desperate level before swooping in to consume it alive. It was almost unfair...really, that the two most powerful things-the Planet itself and Jenova-were perfectly built to demonstrate how the most brutal facet of the life cycle worked.

It was survival of the fittest, but on an intergalactic level.

The glaring truth of the matter was that he didn’t know how to _stop_ it.

Not without killing Saoirse, in any case. So when talk turned into a need for action, when Jenova struck out in that which was a familiar necrotic wash of planetary consumption he could only act to _contain_. This was harder than it sounded, because in order to do that he had to draw on magical reserves that were so disused remembering how to utilize them was a task and a half. It was looking inwards to _pull_ at the long-dead part of himself in order to defend instead of kill, and killing was all that part of him knew. His wing was a more easily utilized mechanism because he’d managed to pull it off before. The most pressing present urgency was to take all of it away from the helicopter...and by proxy away from Aerith and Zack. Neither of them were equipped to deal with something of that magnitude, so when Genesis took to the air Sephiroth followed him...and he didn’t stop until they were some ways away.

It was a desolate confrontation.

Desolate in the sense that the power they were facing would-ultimately-be impossible for them to contain indefinitely. It wasn’t magic...not of your standard, home-grown variety anyway. He was more prone to think of it as energy conducted in a form that lay waste to whatever was before it. It reminded him, in a jarring sense...of his degradation, but on a much larger scale. He’d called Rapier without thought; it was automatic...somewhat knee-jerk really. The feeling of the blade in his palm didn’t settle him, nor did the sight of Masamune in Sephiroth’s. Both weapons were-in his mind-relics indicative of the fact that the past needed to be left behind.

It was hard to leave the past behind when it had taken over your daughter.

Recognizing her from an outsider’s purview would have been nearly impossible. Whatever sort of...biological conversion the Jenova cells allowed for had morphed her beyond almost all recognition...into that which was not-unlike the alien specimen he’d seen pictures of sequestered in the Nibel Reactor before it was dismantled. But Genesis knew Saoirse’s eyes...the shape of them. He also knew her stature...the shape of her hands because of how many times she’d reached for him with them.

It was a bit like being faced with a hurricane of bioluminescent...roiling black that was somehow illuminated far beyond what the color would allow. He didn’t know how to describe it save for the sensation of being in the eye of the storm...looking out at a cylindrical...ever-rotating wall of onyx while the bright figure in the middle hovered over the destruction beneath in a blaze of wings and light.

Saoirse did have two wings...opposed to their one.

It was an irony of heartbreaking proportions...coming from the perspective of a parent. Because what father, what _good_ father didn’t look at his daughter as a gift from the Heavens? And here, now, the Heavens were brought down upon them; brought down in a cyclone that promised only _retribution_ for his inability to truly provide. Said cyclone seemed to contort...to stretch in an attempt to grow larger and whatever Sephiroth threw at it-in a wide arc with that blasted blade-kept it contained, but barely.

It wasn’t the same as fighting in the field. Realistically, it wasn’t the same as anything they’d fought previously… _nothing_ measured up to this in a sense of urgency, desperation, and fear. And the only real way to get it to stop would be for the vessel to drive out what had seated itself within her. It was terrifying to think that the fate of the world suddenly rested on his daughter’s ability to survive, because he’d never, _ever_ wanted that for her.

“Saoirse!” Genesis yelled, throwing caution and sense to the wind. “Saoirse you have to _fight_ her!”

 ** _”She’s gone”_** was the snarling...echoing response that seemed to come from all around them. **_”And who could blame her...really...with the way you treated her?”_**

“Opposed to the way you treated me?” Sephiroth spat. “As a vessel? As nothing but a means to your own end?” Masamune sliced downward again and the world seemed to shift on its axis as the storm around them shrunk in size...even if temporarily. Genesis made a mental note to ask him how the _fuck_ he was doing that but the younger man was still talking. “Hypocrisy is _rife_ in everything you put to ground...in every seed you sow because you look out but you do not look _inside._ ” A toss of the silver head in the midst of the gale and green eyes flashed in the darkness. “That is why you will always lose...no matter what you destroy. Because in destruction you can never _have anything_ , you can only rob those who have existed with purpose and mold it into whatever twisted shape you desire...you’re nothing but a mockery of Saorise, you’re _relient_ on her to enable your whims and if my daughter is anything like me, she’ll _fight_ you to her last.”

“I can feel her” was the added comment to Genesis even as they both winged away from one another to avoid getting flattened into a literal oblivion. “She’s there!” This was thrown at Jenova. “And we _want_ her, and there is _nothing_ we wouldn’t do to keep her safe-”

“-Even if we’ve done a really _shitty_ job of showing her that in the past!” Genesis threw in, ignoring the choked feeling in his throat. “And we know it’s really fucking _scary_ to not know where you belong in the world, but we _love_ her, and we don’t care about this...or what twisted shit Hojo’s done, what _you’ve_ done.”

“You are wanted” Sephiroth echoed...as the howling deluge around them rose to shriek. “You are _needed_ , but more than that you are _you_ , and who you are is _more_ than this...”

_”So fight.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N** : Needed a little break-pushing a bit too hard.
> 
> *Genesis makes a difficult choice in this chapter. I'm sorry for talking so much in these A/Ns, but when I came back to this fic it was with the goal to make it something that at least represented a healthy mindset. Genesis closes out things with Shikro on a very solid scale, even though Shikro's already ignored him in the larger run. This I wanted to be symbolic of...sometimes you have to cut things out of your life you might enjoy in order to avoid something or someone. That might mean not going to an event, deleting social media accounts, finding purpose elsewhere in your life, etc. Genesis letting Shikro take his remaining stipend was essentially that; avoidance of a situation where it wouldn't have emotionally benefited him to engage or fight it, and where choosing to let Shikro take those assets ultimately benefited him because the negative connotations attached to them were out of his hands. Sometimes, the fight for something isn't worth the cost of what it will do to you, that's not cowardice, it's acknowledgement of your own worth. I think it took Gen a long time to realize this, but he's getting there. I think I've focused a lot on the like...really tough parts of life, in a lot of my fics, I didn't always do that, like in my LOTR fic, I really want to believe in that mindset again, not necessarily romance, but in happiness and purpose, so I'm trying to do that here. 
> 
> *For the concept of Gaia as a sort of pantheistic 'deity'/non-deity, I looked at Ruism and Vedism, along with a few others. Many of which don't wholly encompass pantheism in totality but there is a running theme of oneness at once parallel with individual choice. True pantheism sort of piggybacks on the question of _'what is God, really_ , and how do we separate a physical 'God' from metaphysical 'God' and I don't want to get into that. I really wanted a model [models]that still acknowledged separation of self from the congregated whole of belief [in theory, I'm aware theory does not always hold up in practice when it comes to religion] in order to respect individuality as a separate entity aware of itself. Aware and without the toxic elements of adhesion [the problems therein Seph covered in the deeply problematic ideology of the hive mind{problematic to the tenuously self-aware not-philosopher writing herein and others who acknowledge that inherent need for separation of identity and traditional societal constructs. To knock it down to bare bones: _ethics_ >} ] and unhealthy servitude that can become issues in certain- _not all_ -religious mindsets and other social constructs heavily dependent on enmeshment; enmeshment coupled with an obligatory and often knee-jerk urge to subjugate and obey. I know this isn't canon but it'll tie in...in a manner speaking, but this is an AU. 
> 
> Oh my pantheistic 'God' I need to stop talking.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and if you read this A/N, bless you.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *This chapter covers a lot unexplained.

Defining pain, Sephiroth had learned, was an individual act.

During his time in Soldier, his ability to call something painful had been muted by his sense of duty. Shinra taught its military-focused ‘employees’ that duty and honor were more important than a solid sense of self. When it came to governance and warfare this was somewhat important because individualistic ideals did not coagulate well in a continuously combat-centric environment. It was advantageous in the _field_ of combat to sequester things to tactic and rank because relying on emotion in a situation where people were dying was illogical. His skills when it came to being objective in situations of high-stress came not from his ability to dismiss life; rather, it came from his ability to preserve it.

The problem lay in the fact that he did not know how to switch that objectivity off away from the field.

Shinra had toted a somewhat dismal Human Resources and counseling Department, respectively. Soldiers weren’t encouraged to use it. Realistically, using either department was seen as a severe lack of fortitude and it was an easy way to get your drill sergeant to be even harder on you than he already was. What with his rank and status-neither of which he had asked for-pursuit of ‘extracurricular’ activities like self-awareness was seen as frivolity...and from frivolity, weakness. Only very recently and with effort had Sephiroth come to comprehend how damaging the act of viewing pain as weakness was. There was, of course, a distinct difference between actual pain and a veiled affectation of vitriol and hatred. These things, too, he had learned...though perhaps to not as great a degree as others tended to learn it.

_This_ -what Saoirse was going through at the current moment-was the absolute embodiment of pain.

And it wasn’t pain on an every-day, somewhat tolerable level. This wasn’t some teenaged, inwardly-focused tantrum. It was a communication-however unintentional-of an immense internal agony. Sephiroth was familiar with feelings of being ‘not enough’, or inferior to those who were his caretakers. He’d learned very quickly to repress those feelings. More than that, Hojo had never let him catch a glimpse of the kindness he might have known otherwise, so he never was particularly aware of what he was missing. His daughter, however, would have observed what she was missing every day in her peers. He didn’t, on the flipside, think that Genesis was the neglectful parent that he often painted himself out to be. From his semi-coagulated memories of his time in Saoirse’s head, he was more prone to think the exact opposite. The problem lay in the fact that Hojo had played his hand when Soairse was vulnerable and doubtful. Hojo was very good at preying on vulnerability, it was advantageous to him.

Beyond the very obvious and pressing dilemma was the confusing fact that Jenova could take over Saoirse and not affect him. He could really only chalk this up to his death and nothing else. More than that, he’d felt markedly different upon his resurrection than he had prior to his passing. It wasn’t so much a difference in a sense of person as it was a difference in a sense of balance. The act of describing it was difficult because he really had no name for it. Additionally, his ability to feel and not necessarily always act on the compulsions the hive mind offered was far stronger than it had been before. Sephiroth was aware of how dangerous his lack of manipulable utility made him. He was essentially a rogue cell in a network designed to subjugate that which was inside and destroy what was outside. While this made his ability to comprehend the situation greater, it also meant that he was no longer of use and a liability to be disposed of.

Sephiroth did not have to draw parallels to understand how similar the mindset was to Soldier.

Hojo’s ability to utilize Shinra as a means to his own end became less convoluted when he managed to put it all together. HQ had offered him the perfect environment-with the same iron-fisted extremes-to carry out his schemes under the pretense of research and progress. Project S had been his coup de grace, but when that particular project ‘failed’ to deliver, he’d been forced to adjust. Sephiroth didn’t have all the details worked out, but the details in the grand focus of things were middling considerations to be ruminated upon at a later and less urgent date. At the present moment, he could only conclude that somehow Hojo and Jenova’s aims were aligned. This didn’t particularly surprise or disturb him; he’d known Hojo was mad by the time he was five and he was staggering off a gurney trying to figure out why everything hurt so much all the time.

Sephiroth had somehow also concluded he deserved it, but that was neither here nor there.

He couldn’t communicate with Saoirse within the hive mind, but he could feel her. It was an innate awareness of presence; a bit like being conscious of someone in close proximity due to body heat. The ‘nearness’ was different, of course, but the semblance was comparable. She was harder to discern under the absolutely immense presence of Jenova, but she was still there. This wasn’t necessarily comforting because she was very clearly weak, and very clearly almost entirely defeated. He knew what that state of being felt like due to being there himself. It was an innate resignation borne from a totality of despair. Which was really not-unlike Hojo in the sense of Jenova perceiving vulnerability as weakness.

What concerned him more than that was the mako.

Now that he was more familiar with the Lifestream, Sephiroth was also more familiar with what mako really was and why it was so harmful. He could also understand why Jenova’s presence was so detrimental to the Planet, but that was another subject. The problem with mako was that it was life energy; something that each individual on Gaia already possessed in smaller, individual increments merely by existing. During Shinra’s reign, only Soldiers of very high rank-like himself-were given more than they needed to sustain beyond the next scheduled dose. Human cells were not indefinite, so even if mako was, the cells that carried them would eventually die.

Jenova cells, as far as he could tell, didn’t die.

Not so much as they went elsewhere, in any case. Mako absorbed in individuals possessing Jenova cells would carry that mako indefinitely because those cells did not degrade. It explained why Soldiers like himself, Genesis, Angeal, and a few others, possessed so much more physical prowess than their comrades; mako injections were not replenishing a depleted supply, they were adding to it. It also explained why some of those he had left behind upon his death had not aged, and why others had. Sephiroth was fairly sure that mako did not permutate into the gestational process. Soldiers who went home on leave to announce pregnancies when they returned did not later complain about having infants who were inhumanely strong. More than that, he was somewhat convinced that high doses of mako combined with Jenova cells could cause a physiological stasis; where cells did not grow or decay at all beyond a certain degree of mako infusion. Likewise, there had been no Soldiers coming home to complain about children who were born that remained immortal infants. He was somewhat tempted to take Genesis’ degradation as that; his body taking the catalyst of being put into physiological stasis poorly and the Goddess Materia being _just_ enough to center the process.

Most children subjected to mako injections died horrible deaths.

Hojo’s atrocities extended to the rest of the populace, and the youth living in the slums were no exception. He felt, at this point, a little bit stupid for not understanding the abductions in the slums for what they were. It felt problematic to reduce the events over the course of the years to one man and one alien being. Mostly because crediting an inconceivable amount of chaos and suffering to two causal points seemed a direct discredation to his ability to see and eliminate those with poor intent. The Soldier in him insisted he was better than that and therefore culpable, even if the truth was more complicated. He didn’t know, in the end, what mako would do to Saoirse beyond assumption based on the grounds of what had been done to him and those around him. It was frightening not to know, but he had long ago learned that inaction based on indecision based on _fear_ could be horribly damaging.

That didn’t change the fact that he didn’t know how to reach Saoirse.

Sephiroth didn’t entirely comprehend the power cycling around them save for some innate and instinctive knowledge of it via the hive mind. If he wanted to reduce it to something banal, it was a little bit like learning to use a latent muscle. He could tell Genesis was baffled every time he swung Masamune in order to contain the level of destruction around them, but stopping to even attempt to explain it would have destroyed his focus entirely. The act of containing a cosmic force of destruction with both his mind and body-even with help-was astronomical. He hadn’t, if he was entirely forthright, faced anything that had demanded so much of him before. It was a pull on both his physicality and mentality, even if he had nothing but a few scratches on him.

This was averse to Genesis, who was looking absolutely haggard.

As Jenova began to push against the barriers of their containing field and they pushed back, he observed as the redhead’s currently greyish skin tone began to edge towards blue around the eyes, nose, and lips. He was faltering in his movements and this, more than anything, told Sephiroth that they needed to try something else. Saoirse was beyond even his reach, or perhaps so enmired in despair it wouldn’t matter what they did. This meant that his focus needed to be on Jenova and only Jenova. He could feel her, to some extent, in the back of his mind. There was no real way to shut off the hive mind entirely, and there were times when her will was a practically suffocating thing. Unlike before, however, there was no urge to dismiss or lash out at those he loved or those that tried to stop him. This much, at least, gave him some hope for his initial theory of present disconnect.

“So Thierry!” Genesis was shouting. “You never told me your Mom was such a pain in the ass! I feel like that really puts a damper on things!”

“I think it would be unwise to-”

Sephiroth had spoken with the intent to dissuade Genesis from antagonizing Jenova, but he had either opened his mouth too late, or she had simply lost patience with them. The surge of power that followed the redhead’s statement was so strong it nearly knocked him into unconsciousness. He heard-vaguely-Genesis make an agonized noise and felt himself begin to free fall before his retinas gave out, something popped inside his head, and the world was plunged into a sightless oblivion inundated with a swimming, visceral agony. He couldn’t tell which way was up or down...he couldn’t tell if he’d hit the ground or if he was still falling. There was a distinct feeling of disconnect from his body but the crawling, tearing sensation in his mind continued. It was pervasive...it was claws dug into every synapse. They found ground in his myelin sheath and ripped _downwards_ in a bleeding, psychic score of viscera that would have had him screaming if he still had a mouth with which to speak.

It was a culling, he came to comprehend, of that which was no longer obedient.

_***”A failed progeny”*** _

The voice was everywhere and nowhere. It was a growl thrumming into the depths of his amygdala that...a dark yet somehow unbearably bright burst in his frontal cortex. The pain was so great that it took him what he assumed was several moments to understand it.

_’So why save me?’_ he sent out desperately. _’Why bring me back?’_

There was no answer to that. No verbal answer, in any case. It was more of a series of scattered, errant flashes of comprehension that were as much color as they were a representation of reasoning. Even while in the Lifestream, Sephiroth still had a connection to Jenova. Jenova could do very little about that connection when he was dead, and if she absorbed the Lifestream while he was still within it, he could still pose a threat...and a greater one than when he was alive. Some part of him wanted to laugh, but he didn’t have the mouth to direct the sound out of. It seemed, however, that Jenova comprehended the dark derision in his psyche because the fist around his mind only tightened further. It seemed to be draining him of...well, of absolutely _everything._ She meant, Sephiroth understood, to destroy him entirely...down to his essence. A part of him was tempted to take that and accept it...perhaps that was a compulsion furthered by the monster in his mind...he didn’t really know...he only knew that that part of him was whispering _’enough’_...and it was tempting.

_’Why did you leave?’_

With how quickly every fact of his being was dwindling away, it was hard to understand that it was Saoirse speaking to him. Everything about his mind felt slow and thick...like the slow drain of a coaguate substance in a too-small basin. Her presence was different...it wasn’t pain...it was sorrow, but not towards him. It was a flickering, dove-soft light that somehow reminded him of an echo of himself...from so long ago.

_’I didn’t want to’_. Responding took effort. Really, responding seemed to take every part of him that could still muster the consciousness to form thought with...and he could only think back to her birth...in that moment. He could think upon the anticipation coupled with the pain...of the innate nature of bringing life that was his into the world. Such privilege was something he had determined he would never do again, but it was so worth it to hold her. And he had held her...sometimes for hours. For hours and hours he held her in terrible fear of what her life would become...in fear of Jenova...in fear of such a small, desperately innocent being being snatched from him by those who had always sought to control him and all he held dear. _’I didn’t want to, Saoirse.’_

It was hard to communicate how he felt across such a convoluted space...but he did what he could. He could feel her fear of such communication, not because it was terrible, but because it was something they had shared that not even Genesis could possibly understand. Carrying a child was not something that could be fully understood from an outsiders’ point of view...nor could the single and intimate fact that said child would always be _that_ child. It hadn’t been planned, but it had been something that, when he learned of it and when he couldn’t avoid it anymore, he _wanted_. That want was a golden and circulate luminescence within him, it was a spiraled...glittering effervescence that he refused to cloud with the desire to temper it. Doing so would have been more of a dishonesty than a kindness.

_’Dad sometimes says that it’s not about what’s done as much as what you can do.’_ Weak...her voice was so weak. Sephiroth hated hearing it in such a form. Still, underneath it, he could feel her resolve. It wasn’t necessarily hopeful, but it was steadfast. _’Maybe that’s all it’s about..’_

_’You’re **not** compromised, you’re just stubborn and you refuse to see that if the hive mind works one way, it’ll work the other way too.’_

It was a bit like being struck by lightning.

Even as Genesis’ voice faded from the recesses of his psyche...he felt innately _stupid_ for not seeing it for what it could be before. With his ability to exist in the hive mind but not succumb to it, it meant-perhaps-that he was as much dominant as Jenova. Even as the fist slowly squeezing the life out him continued its ever-tightening grip, he acknowledged that it couldn’t be too much different than calling Masamune...only on a much larger scale. Realistically, it couldn’t be much different than containing Jenova as he and Genesis had...but on a much larger level. Comprehending such things and utilizing them was different...of course...much like understanding what made up Jenova and made up her cells was an abstract concept...but he had learned to deal with such concepts within the Lifestream. He couldn’t get _rid_ of the cells, of course...that much he had learned was an inevitability. So when he reached within himself- _deep_ -within himself to pull on the strings of that dark power he had so long attempted to avoid, the pushback was immediate.

**_*”No”*_ **

Some part of him was choked by the command...or at least the attempted command. Even as he lifted himself away from the compulsion to obey and dove back into the blackness that was the amalgamation of cells that had plagued him his entire life, it was hard to ignore...but he did. And he could _see_ , to some degree, why it was so easy for Jenova to take control. She was everything that encompassed the cells, but she was also apart from it. Without a physical form she was forced to rely on a vessel, but she was still there. It was a bit like trying to fit his fingers in the most complicated metaphorical glove in the world. There were stitches he was unaccustomed to...holes he nearly fell through before backtracking in order to stretch the ‘fabric’ of the anomaly that was the cells in order to make them fit. His psychic fingers he had to flex in order to get a feel for how malleable that substance of it was against his metaphysical ‘palms’. A minute...an hour...days or _years_ , he didn’t know how long it took him...especially under the onslaught of pain. He could feel Saoirse dimly...especially now that he comprehended how the cells existed within her...within him...within _every_ thing Jenova had seen fit to call hers merely by association.

_***”I will not be usurped!”*** _

‘Flexing’ himself one more time before replying, Sephiroth allowed himself a moment to revel in the fear he could feel rippling across the myopic surface of each and every facet of _everything_ that was Jenova.

_’Like you said’_ he replied smoothly, gathering the cells together in a massive, towering amalgamation of completion. _’It’s not about winning.’_ With a mental push that sent Jenova reeling he seated the suggestion he had formed _deep_ within the nucleus of every single miniscule part that was the Calamity from the Skies. _’But what it **is** about is freedom, what it **is** about is that I am **nothing** like you, and I want you to leave.’_ Rooting the compulsion as deep as it would go he ‘smiled’ in the echoing, soon to be nonexistent recesses of the hive. _**’Go,** and forget you were ever here, forget that this happened, forget every part of the universe you have so far reduced to ash and dwindle in those insipid, lost stretches of the cosmos...where nothing can feed you, where the dark matter that expands but offers nothing can provide you company. Starve in the outer reaches and know that you have brought it upon yourself. **Leave** this planet, and never return...and never stop telling yourself this; you reap what you sow, and you will sow no more desolation.’_

Jenova did not have time to scream, or lash out...or throw another crushing mental fist his way.

The process of describing the egress of a mental connection he had carried-at times unconsciously-his entire life was an impossible task. Briefly, he could see the nuclei of each cell light up with the command he had executed, but that was swiftly shut off as the hive mind began to disintegrate. It wasn’t an explosive or damaging thing, really. It was more like the trickle of a black...necrotic sand seeping into the nothingness around him...up into a starless sky...up into the boundless reaches of a universe he would never fully see. Further, it slithered, until it was far enough away that he was aware of his body again. He was lying on the ground...that much he was able to tell immediately. Sephiroth was sore, but not in a way that indicated that he had fallen from a great height. There was someone leaning over him; that much he could acknowledge. There was someone kneeling beside him, the rustle of clothes and ragged breath that indicated extreme exhaustion. Opening his eyes proved a further challenge, but when he did, he was met with the sight of Saoirse looking at him with an utterly lost expression. His body felt strangely heavy...like somehow a part of him that had existed within him for a long time was gone.

“Dad caught you” she was saying. When he didn’t reply she repeated the statement. “I don’t know how.”

“Are you alright?”

His voice came out rough, even as he attempted to sit up on his elbows and he watched as she nodded vigorously even as she appeared to at the same time attempt not to burst into tears. A cold feeling settled in his chest as he realized what she was not saying. Paying full attention now, the former General struggled to sit fully before rising to his feet. Saoirse moved as well, but he didn’t watch to see where she went. Instead, he scanned the destruction around them in a desperate, seeking sort of way, his heart in his throat. Jenova had leveled the portion of the mountain range around them. They had gone to a great effort to draw her away from any populated cities, towns, or farms, but he didn’t know...surveying the damage, if that would be enough. He could vaguely remember the area below them being choked with thick forests when they got there. Now, there was nothing but a flat, empty expanse peppered with fallen forest...like giant matchsticks. It was not-unlike the aftermath of a volcanic explosion.

At the epicenter...where there would normally be a smoking crater was a crumpled, single-winged form with a swatch of dusty, but still fiery hair.

The dread that suffused him was a swooping...adrenaline-fueled thing. Even as he took a numb, almost unconscious step forward, Saoirse walked unsteadily past him to take up position by her father, grasping the hand holding Rapier-which was cracked down the middle-and prying it loose so she could cup it in both of her own. Here, she seemed to lose some of her frankly incredibly steadfast composure because she started to shake, and once she did, she couldn’t seem to stop. Sephiroth could barely think beyond the figure before him...could barely _see_ beyond it because the only thing going through his mind was the wicked, blue-eyed flash of mischief that he knew would haunt him until the day he died. Even as Saoirse bowed her head over that slim-fingered...so-familiar yet so long distant hand he could only think that that day might come sooner than later if what he feared had happened had come to pass. He came to a standstill, above the dusty, collapsed form of the man he _did_ love, even if he’d been atrocious at showing it, and he couldn’t bring himself to move.

“I don’t know” Saoirse was gulping to hold back tears at this point. “I don’t _know_ what happened! But I’m sorry, I’m so _sorry_ , I didn’t mean to-!”

“It’s not your fault” Sephiroth said automatically, the words almost toneless as they passed over his lips. He wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t know what to say, he didn’t know what to do-

“-He’s always been good to me!” She was crying outright now and he knelt automatically, felt his knees hit the dirt distantly even as he reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, and when she didn’t shrug him away, he kept it there. “I know he was trying, Ho- _he_ -he _did_ things, things that-!”

“-If he-” Sephiroth couldn’t bring himself to say the words out loud. “We’ll have to do this all over again.”

He didn’t mean for it to sound so lackadaisical.

Inwardly, he was imploding, but the phrase was so banal and so careless he wanted to kick himself but he was too numb to do anything but curse himself mentally. Because _Genesis_ was the parent here, and he was barely familiar with the niceties of human interaction. Barely and now, when his daughter needed him most, he didn’t know what to do. And maybe that was enough, really. He wasn’t entirely sure, but perhaps his utter and complete incompetence was enough to bring even the most stubborn of men back from the grave because it was then that Genesis took a great, heaving and gulping breath and the _relief_ that flooded him made him lightheaded and dizzy. Saoirse made a hysterical, inchoate sound that was terrible fear mixed with exultation and he could relate to it even if he couldn’t necessarily show it. Genesis took one breath, and then two and then three and those blue-but not quite so blue as they had been before-eyes cracked open and familiar lips formed themselves into a dismal frown.

“Well, if that isn’t enough to scare me back into existence I don’t know what the hell is.”

The voice was gruff, but the affection in it was clear. Saoirse laughed and it was a breathless, disbelieving sound accompanied with the act of throwing her arms around the redheaded former First and then promptly exploding into tears on his shirtfront and Sephiroth got up to let them have a moment...but mostly because he needed one as well. Turning away, he watched as dawn began to throw golden...glittering rays across the decimated mountain range behind them. He couldn’t hear much of anything beyond the immediate area. Realistically, all of his senses seemed to be somewhat muted compared to what they had been before. There was a facet of himself that grieved that loss...but yet another facet that welcomed it. It was some time before Genesis joined him, but when he did he made his presence known by placing a palm at the small of his back.

“My wing fell off.”

Alarmed, Sephiroth spun about only to be faced with a smirking, freckled face. Tilting his head, Genesis jerked his chin towards where he’d fallen and he could just see the shape of a feathered mess lying on the ground.

“It doesn’t hurt.” A pause, and the older man sobered. “She’s gone...isn’t she?” When Sephiroth didn’t respond, he continued. “It’s all gone.”

“...Yes,” Sephiroth said at length. “All of it.”

The redhead appeared to dither for a moment before he opened his mouth again.

“Seph, I-”

-He didn’t really care, in that moment, for linguistic platitudes.

It was likely rude, but when he reached out to take that familiar face in his hands and crush their lips together in a manner entirely ungraceful but entirely _grateful_ , he didn’t care. He only knew what he had in that current moment, and he could not bring himself to think further than that. Genesis stiffened for but a moment before returning the kiss with equal fervor, with a fire that _still_ stole his breath away and left him winded and wanting for more. Because they had _survived_ and he was _free_ and he _wanted_ this. He wanted it in ways that were not desperate but wholehearted and warm and not a little bit shell shocked. There was a soft, almost-incredulous laugh against his mouth and he swallowed it down only to begin things anew...until the sun was warm on his back and he could _feel_ the world beyond it in its newness and somehow feel whole again.

“Sephiroth” Genesis chuckled at length. The younger man reeled him in again and he laughed again and it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. _”Seph,”_ this time it was ragged and affectionate and a little exasperated. “This is great and all but we’re not alone, you know I fancy a show but not in front of our kid.”

Panting, red-faced, covered in dirt but liberated, the former General took a moment to catch his wind before replying.

“There’s a saying” he muttered, smoothing a hand through scarlet locks even as he stroked the older man’s cheek. “About getting into beds and getting out of them the same way.”

He leaned in for another go but a pale hand on his lips stopped him, and he observed as Genesis appeared to struggle to compose himself.

“Are you _saying_ ” the redhead choked through barely-contained laughter. “Or are you _trying_ to say; _’I fucked myself into this situation so I’m damn well going to fuck my way out of it?!’”’_

Raising a silver brow, Sephiroth considered the comment before leaning in once more.

“Well” he said sardonically. “If the boot fits.”

Laughter, of the kind he had never heard before, pealed over the mountains that day. It was raucous but at the same time gentle and disbelieving. It came from a mouth he thought he would never see smile again...and that...that was _good_. Even as Saoirse came to join them at length...as the sound of a helicopter approaching became apparent, it was good, because they had weathered this and come out the other end alive. It wasn’t long after that that they learned that Angeal was alive, and of what had transpired in the labs below what used to be Shinra Manor but that...that was a tale for another time. His daughter sent him a tentative, but relieved smile that Sephiroth returned, and he couldn’t say what it would amount to, only that he wanted to _try_.

And that...that was _more_ than enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** I'm beat. Hitting the hay right after this. Thanks for reading.  
> *it may be longer for an update after this. siphoned myself to the bones for this chapter.


	24. Chapter 24

Angeal had not-admittedly-thought much ahead.

Under different circumstances and in different times, Genesis would have declared this cause for celebration. Considering that these were not differing circumstances or times, such a point was null and void. More than that, Genesis was not there, he had been above and was not so much sarcastic as the freshly-initiated redhead who had often told him to _’loosen up.’_ There had been times when he wished for that raucous, somewhat mean-spirited but loyal part of his childhood friend back. Angeal had learned too many hard lessons involving wishes to take that particular vein of thinking further. That being said, he was reluctant to sequester life experience solely to the abrupt and everlasting extinguishment of ‘youth.’ Looking at Genesis like someone who had died and come back as someone else was not only morbid, it was shortsighted.

None of the above changed the fact that he had not thought ahead.

The past few days had been such a maelstrom of sequential events that the concept of thought was nearly impossible. Angeal had made his way to the Sleeping Forest with the grim knowledge-see; assumption-that Genesis had been kidnapped or somehow coerced into a situation that would get him killed. Vincent beat him there-of course-and he wasn’t entirely sure how but hadn’t had the chance to sit down and ask him. If he was entirely forthright about the situation, they had essentially followed the gunslinger. He was more prone to chalk the older man’s ability to hone in on locale to the now-absent Jenova cells, but he also hadn’t allowed himself to think too deeply about it.

Seeing Sephiroth again was surreal enough.

More surreal was watching him and Genesis emerge from the Sleeping Forest like wayward phantoms from years of yore. It was otherworldly in a manner not a little unpleasant because he did not know how to feel. On one hand, Angeal was the best friend of a man he had seen suffer immensely in the former General’s absence. On the other hand was the part of him that had sometimes secretly hoped for the green-eyed ex-First to return. More than that, that part of him had fought for Sephiroth’s return even when Genesis wouldn’t. It was an inner conflict he did not entirely know how to rectify, so when Vincent offered to drive Genesis and Sephiroth back to Midgar he was relieved...because it meant he could process it further.

Damage control was his most prevalent initial task upon returning to the city.

The aforementioned meant requiring silence from those who had seen what had transpired, and this meant pulling his influential weight in areas he’d rather have kept in the past. Not because he didn’t care about Sephiroth or Genesis, but because it meant asking for loyalty from those who didn’t necessarily owe him anything anymore. Only a handful of men had gone with him-aside from Zack and Tseng-and they were all former Soldiers so they acquiesced readily and it only made him more discomfited. And it wasn’t like anyone had committed a crime, but the courts had long ago ruled that Sephiroth was a criminal. He didn’t know if it could be argued that such a conviction made posthumously was valid once the person in question came back to life, but it was still a reality, and so it still required discretion. It also required fabricating a report of what had transpired. It was the first time ANgeal had done anything of the sort in his life and he was fairly sure he didn’t like it. They had a multitude of people in power willing to conceal the truth, but the _truth_ was that the public did not share a collective opinion on the matter that was remotely positive. Sephiroth would have to live out his days-which, at the time, seemed like that could feasibly be eternity-concealed, or they could force an exoneration.

 _’Forced exoneration’_ felt too much like what Shinra did to its Generals that committed war crimes but ultimately still served the company’s corrupt agenda.

He didn’t have much time to think about that upon returning home...especially since he had his own personal issues to work through in a very short amount of time. Willow he went to see because he felt he owed it to her to tell her that her parents’ murderer was alive and physically-if not mentally-hale. It seemed wrong and like a compilement of dishonesty atop the fact that he could not choose between the woman he loved and the friend he loved. She turned him out initially, before he could really say anything. By the time she let him in to talk to her the day had nearly come and gone.

_”Sephiroth’s return doesn’t concern me as much as the fact that you’ll throw so much of what you value away because someone who has consistently proven himself to be toxic needs you.”_

Sitting at Willow’s kitchen table clutching a cup of tea, Angeal wanted to say it was more complicated than that, _far_ more complicated than she could comprehend. What stopped him was the truth that she’d been his therapist for months and suggesting as much was not only an insult to her intelligence, it was an insult to her professionalism.

_”Willow, you’re the person who taught me that pain isn’t something we should go through alone. There are times when I should have told Genesis no, but this wasn’t one of them.”_

She threw him out.

It became somewhat of a routine...over the course of the next week between their subjective work schedules and what time would allow. Angeal would come over a few hours before his shift, they would eat dinner and exchange pleasantries. When everything was cleaned up and put away they would sit down to seriously talk and eventually he’d get thrown out again.

_”Angeal, I need you to understand that while **I** can understand wanting to help your friend, there’s a difference between helping someone and enabling them.”_

_”I’m not try-”_

_”You’re not **trying** to enable him, I know. But Genesis is grown and he knows he’s grown and he has consistently and often told you he’s grown.”_ Shifting somewhat irritably in her seat, Willow had shot him a shrewd glare. _”I don’t know what’s more frustrating, the fact that he doesn’t actually **want** your help but you’re still giving it, or the fact that you **want** to be the hero to someone who never asked to be saved. I’m not in love with Angeal the hero, I’m in love with Angeal the **person**_.”

Angeal had learned a long time ago that-barring things like torture, murder, assault, or coercion-blame was a subjective tool. Truth, he had learned, particularly emotional truth, was also subjective, and he was unwilling to compromise his belief system to cater to someone else; particularly after Shinra. Likewise, as much as he wholeheartedly stood behind his decision to help Genesis and help Midgar, Willow had an equal right to stand behind her desire to want a partner that was less involved in everything. He knew, as surely as the sky was blue, that he could never do that. Shinra had had a huge hand in telling him what decisions to make in life...what he should support and stand behind and as a result he had often stood behind the wrong things. It was why he was in law enforcement; because he wanted to stand behind and support something he believed in...not because of a concept of debt but because public service and involvement was something that brought him joy. He loved to help people, as much as Willow loved to help her patients, and he told her as much.

_”But law enforcement is part of your career, just because what Genesis dragged you into this time **involved** law enforcement doesn’t mean it’s part of what you do. You’re mixing the personal and the public. You have to at the very least recognize that.”_

They likely could have debated until they were old and grey.

In the end, Willow was dealing with conflicting emotions of protection warring with the fact that the man who had murdered her parents-however unwittingly-was alive. They were both upset, and the events that had transpired made it difficult to agree to disagree and still acknowledge that they cared for one another.

_”Maybe we should take a break.”_

This was whispered...numb and cold and almost in unison minutes before Genesis called him in hysterics to inform him that Saoirse was missing. It was a kind of resigned...stomach-full-of-lead acknowledgement that felt hollow...like so much turned into a tenuous uncertainty and it _hurt_ but it was also cogent.

 _”I’d still like to be your friend…”_.

This Angeal had said tentatively, to which he’d received the first true genuine smile from her he’d gotten since he’d come back.

_”I’d like that too.”_

It wasn’t a victory.

As much as he had learned the detrimental reality of subjectivity, he had also learned that relationships were not based on a system of conquest or sustainability through status and equality. No matter how much he wanted things to work out, he knew that they couldn’t work out if it sacrificed what defined him as a person or coagulated his values with someone else’s. That was as far as they got..and he considered it a bit ironic that at the news of Saoirse’s disappearance, Willow rallied as voraciously as he did. Because they were still united...it was just bittersweet that they couldn’t be united in their differences as a couple.

Hard truths were bought in the coagulant miasma that he had accepted as a facet of his existence. So, too, like most Soldiers, had he learned to compartmentalize those facets in order to focus on the task at hand. When Sephiroth took to the skies to go after his daughter and Genesis barked at him to commandeer the chopper, it wasn’t a question about what he valued more, it was a question of what he could do in that moment. He’d left Willow with Gillian with the understanding that things would be different when he returned, and he made peace with it as much as he was able...because he _did_ have a duty...and that duty commanded not emotionalism but action.

Zack and Aerith went with him because he felt it was tactically cogent and because he needed the support. Aerith knew more about the Planet than anyone and Zack would watch his six. He didn’t know what they were flying into, save that Saoirse needed help and Genesis had managed to sky-wrestle Sephiroth into a moving helicopter and that was very impressive. Not merely because the act of throwing someone into a moving aircraft required a titanic amount of focus and strength, but because the person in question was the man who had blown up a third of Midgar and then wiped out three quarters of Shinra’s infantry before killing himself by intentional boyfriend-proxy. If he wanted to be morbidly humorous, Sephiroth’s backstory was so dramatic it was amazing no one had ever called him out on-as Genesis would say-his _complete and utter bullshit_ before. There was some sincere emotional satisfaction in seeing his redheaded friend drag the younger man around and then strap him into a seat like a toddler before giving him the chewing out of a lifetime.

Angeal was prone to think of himself as the designated driver up to the point he caught sight of Hojo.

Seeing Saoirse-and he had recognized her-as she was was heartbreaking, but he had recognized that if there was nothing Genesis could do, there wasn’t much that he could do either. That, and the idea of getting to Hojo was such an obsessive focus in his mind that he didn’t really consider the consequences until he was out and in…and in he was. The laboratories below what had once been Shinra manor were massive. He had known, to some degree, that the manor had a basement. This had been scoured in years prior, and he hadn’t considered the fact that demolition wouldn’t particularly touch sub-floor levels...or at the very least he had never thought that anyone would use them again. By the time they’d arrived Tseng had already sent out a dispatch to arrest Shikro. The courts would deal with him, and neither he nor-so he assumed-Genesis would want anything to do with that.

It was like being in the Science Department all over again.

Somewhat grumpily, he’d reflected that Hojo didn’t have much foresight when it came to decor. His designs were updated and sterilized but there wasn’t any flair to it and he had been taught-long ago, by a scrappy redhead-that a lack of personalization wasn’t far from a lack of _person_. There were exceptions, of course, like Sephiroth, who had been so dogmatized by Shinra he’d had to learn to be a person in his late twenties. Hojo, however, was not in his late twenties, and his actions when it came to how he viewed and treated others spoke louder than anything he could have possibly been through.

The Buster Sword didn’t come to him.

He didn’t expect it to...even if a small part of him was unhappy with the prospect. The destroyed sword in question, while he’d viewed it as an extension of himself, wasn’t so much magically imbued as Rapier or Masamune. He didn’t need the Buster Sword to apprehend Hojo anyway. Despite his prowess in things scientific and perhaps magical-and _alien_ -he was no Soldier, and whatever powers he might have garnered were rendered null and void once the Jenova cells dissipated.

_”I wonder...do you always cater after your companions...like a good little **dog**?”_

The same old song and dance.

Taunting...in any case...and Angeal did not consider himself one to rise to the occasion much when it came to verbal jibes. His best friend had a mean streak a mile wide and he’d learned to curb his temper in the face of vitriol. It was a nice little goose chase...if anything about the situation could be called nice. He’d stalked Hojo through multiple, white-washed rooms...through glaring tube-lights and into semi-luminescent, professionalistic depths. There were no other employees, and he supposed the madman had sent them away before they arrived...likely anticipating they would come. They would need to be apprehend, but that would come later. Hojo was stalling...and that was all he was doing. Likely because he assumed Jenova would succeed. A kinder version of him might have told Hojo that to Jenova he was just collateral damage, but he was not feeling so kind, and he sincerely believed Hojo already knew that. He didn’t think Hojo possessed a sense of self-preservation at all...merely an endgame...and he would see himself hanged before that endgame came to fruition.

It was impossible to know what was happening above.

Whatever Hojo and his lackeys had done to fortify the place was ironclad in the sense that it was soundproof. There were other protections...of course, but he wasn’t so focused on those because a lack of sound meant that he would never know what transpired. Instead, Angeal kept his focus forefront...on the task at hand. He felt when the Jenova cells left him...mostly because while his faculties were somewhat compromised he felt cleaner...lighter. More than that...many of the experiments sequestered in holding tanks about him began to disintegrate almost immediately. Crisis alarms began to sound throughout the facility...and when that started...Hojo fell silent.

In the end...it wasn’t dramatic.

It wasn’t...because he found Hojo sitting in a sublevel office...several floors below where they started with that maniacal grin. He found him...in a white lab coat, with those glinting, maddened spectacles and he’d drawn his standard-issue gun and pointed it straight between his eyes.

 _”What?”_ was the cackled comment. _”An officer of the law murdering an unarmed citizen...for no reason at all? That’s beneath you, Hewely.”_

 _”It’s not for nothing”_ Angeal had replied coldly. _”It’s for what you did in Soldier...what you continued to do even after Soldier was dissolved. It’s for the thousands of people who fell victim to your schemes, myself included. It’s for Sephiroth, it’s for Genesis, and it’s for Saoirse and the choices you **forced** upon all of them...all of **us**. You’re not a citizen, you’re a wanted criminal, and **I** know you can talk your way out of a cell.”_

 _“I’m a patient man, I am a careful man, but you are **not** a man, you’re a monster. More than that, you’re a monster who has continuously taught others that **they** are monsters, and not you. Monsters do not get the consideration or the privileges that people do.”_ The **_*click*_** of his gun being cocked was negligible. _”So no, this isn’t beneath me. If I’m entirely honest, there are people who have more of a right to do this than I do, but you don’t get to get away again. I’d ask you if you had any last words, but I don’t care to hear them.”_

He hadn’t waited to see what the blood-splatter looked like.

In the sound-muffled space...the shot was muted and dull. It didn’t echo...and it didn’t travel far. And again...it wasn’t a victory...not in the face of everything that had been lost to get there. He did what he had to do and he didn’t revel in it. It was murder, and if he went to prison for it, then so be it. Angeal climbed up to the initial sub-surface level before he slid down a spotless glass wall and promptly imploded. It wasn’t a cataclysmic...ground-shaking thing; he didn’t bellow or shout or throw things, he merely sat there until the world didn’t feel like it was dropping out from under him. Relief was a strange emotion given the circumstances, but he did feel relief...even if the good samaritan in him felt guilt-knee-jerk though it was-for doing what he had done. The Jenova cells were gone...Hojo was gone...and it was strange to exist in an empty...bereft space where he could acknowledge that he didn’t have to worry if the world was going to end tomorrow.

Zack found him eventually.

That was a bit of a fancy way of saying that his former trainee dropped into the sterilized pit after him several hours later and hugged him to death. The sound of the younger man’s boots on the metal grating had alarmed him at first...but the spine-crushing embrace was enough to tell him who it was. They sat there a long while without saying anything...without uttering a single word. The Soldier in him wanted him to get up...to brush it off and move on...to find some exhilarating high in the apparentness of their exoneration...but he couldn’t. They did eventually make it back to ground level, once Angeal had managed to force out that he’d killed Hojo and Zack grunted a deeply satisfied _’awesome’_ into the enclosed space...but it still felt unreal. If several grenades were thrown into the labs in their wake they didn’t talk about it. Aerith was waiting for them next to the chopper, which was looking a little beat up and dingy. The scenery around them had been decimated...as far as the eye could see, but he was reassured that the damage was not as wide-spread as it looked. He asked for some time to collect himself before they went and retrieved Sephiroth, Genesis, and Saoirse...and merely _seeing_ Saoirse...seeing her herself...even if her eyes held a sadness now that was deeper and darker and more permanent than they had before...seeing her alive was worth it.

The way she shouted his name and practically shoved Sephiroth to the side so she could hug him made it more worth it.

Aerith and Zack were not far behind when it came to sharing limbs in order to suppress sincere and total relief...and if he caught emerald green eyes above the pile of people he loved and held them a minute before nodding, it was only in a show of faith.

Aerith flew the chopper back.

Sitting in one of the hull seats across from a dozing Saoirse, a Genesis who had channeled some jazz into his headphones and declared himself ‘undisturbable for the foreseeable future’ and a Zack that was writing up a lengthy report, Angeal was left with Sephiroth, who looked like he didn’t know where to begin. The silver-haired man was-for an individual who put such a heavy emphasis on tidiness-incredibly dirty, and he looked incredibly tired.

“You could sleep” Angeal commented finally, when the silence had gone on too long.

Silver lashes dusted alabaster cheeks as the former General blinked at him before refocusing.

“I don’t think that’s possible” was the slow response. “I apologize, Angeal” Sephiroth added, somewhat awkwardly. “I didn’t-I didn’t _want_ this to be so difficult.”

“You didn’t make Hojo do the things he did, and you didn’t make Jenova do the things she did” the dark-haired ex-Commander pointed out.

“I didn’t do much to put a halt to it” was the scoffed reply. “And when I _did_ try and rectify things...I only made them worse.”

“Frankly, I think it’s a miracle you survived to adulthood” Angeal muttered. When his conversational companion looked somewhat disbelieving, he grimaced. “I… _hate_ what your death did to Genesis. It was horrific, it was _long_ and I’m not sure if he ever would have gotten better. I wanted him to, _so many of us wanted him to_ , but all of us who have been in the program seem to get pretty stuck on things we can’t control. Genesis isn’t any different...he’s likely a lot worse than most. We’re all damaged...Sephiroth, but it’s not unsurvivable...and it’s not unforgivable.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I have to answer to the public” Sephiroth replied blandly, and Angeal must have looked shocked because the smirk he was favored with was humorless. “We both know I do. I refuse to live out an existence in hiding, especially with Genesis and Saoirse.”

“I don’t think Genesis would thank you for coming to that decision without him.”

“It’s not a decision, it’s a reality. The public is aware, at this point, that I’m alive. If we conceal it, it doesn’t just affect us anymore, it has to go to trial.”

Angeal knew he was right.

He didn’t _like_ that he was right...but he was. Tseng had radioed them in long ago to inform them that the populace was out for blood...before the confrontation with Jenova and Hojo. They could fake his death...certainly...but it wouldn’t make anything concrete...and it wouldn’t close the circle.

“I don’t see the odds being in your favor” he finally declared numbly. “I don’t see this ending well, and if it doesn’t end well it will kill Genesis, Sephiroth.” A helpless gesture. “I know it doesn’t seem like he cares sometimes...I know it’s been hard since you’ve been back...however briefly, but he cares. He might care a little too much and that’s why he’s put up a front.” Angeal hesitated before continuing. “There’s so many things he doesn’t do that he used to. I could never get him to date...and if something looked serious...he’d back off, get spooked.” He shook his head. “I can’t even-! Just _touch_ seems to send him off sometimes...like physical contact...or maybe the lack of it, somehow breaks whatever walls he’s built around himself to keep himself safe.”

“He said he’s had casual relations” was the somewhat hoarse reply.

“Yes” Angeal said exasperatedly. “ _Casual_ being the key word. Whenever things started to look like commitment he couldn’t stand to lay a finger on them anymore. And that’s...that’s _scary stuff_ , Sephiroth, it’s trauma beyond the bounds of what I’m equipped to deal with, even in Soldiers with shell-shock. If it was scary for me, I can’t imagine what it’s been like for him. Don’t add to that when you can talk to him first...please.”

It was a bit like baring your soul to a ghost.

Even with the real, flesh and blood version of that ghost in front of him...it didn’t feel real. Aerith announced their descent, and he vaguely acknowledged that they’d landed somewhere near Kalm, but it was hard to concentrate on the locale when he was trying to emphasize something so important.

“We will discuss it.”

Some of the anxiety that seemed to have balled up in Angeal’s chest dissipated with the acquiescence.

“Thank you” he said gruffly, leaning back even as they touched down on a grassy knoll. It was near noon at this point...the sun was high. “And welcome back, Sephiroth.”

The silver-haired man had opened his mouth to reply when two shadows fell over the open hull. Specifically, one shadow was that of Valentine; tall and forbidding...shrouded in a scarlet cloak. The other shape was tall as well, but lithe and willowy. She was dressed simply...in a plain T-shirt and pants, and her _very_ long brown hair had been pulled back in a tail. Angeal didn’t recognize her at first...mostly because the idea of it was so impossible it took his brain a long time to catch up...but when he did he nearly leapt out of his skin. Again...she was tall; her face was heart-shaped and angular atop a neck that was graceful...adorned with a simple string of pearls. Genesis made a disbelieving noise but no one seemed to hear it. Saoirse stirred awake and looked around in confusion even as the woman took a step forward only to be halted by Vincent. Her visage was aquiline in nature...young...but not so young. She carried herself with an air of poise but also an air of lessons hard-learned...of grief...of sorrow...and the faintest glimmer of hope...but the shape of her eyes…

...her eyes were Sephiroth’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** Here’s something fun you might want to murder me for; a friend pointed out to me that if you make the ‘J’ silent in ‘Hojo’ [say, like the Spanish language sometimes does with ‘j’ like in José], it is then pronounced ‘Ho-ho’. It’s been stuck in my head thanks to her and now I will pass this pestilence along. Perhaps with all his high pitched maniacal laughing [ _‘hee hee ho-ho-ho!’_ ] He was actually desperately trying to tell others how to say his name. Sayonara, Professor Ho-ho. I know it’s a bit weird to get rid of Jenova by very fancifully saying “go away!” And to just blow Hojo’s brains out. But...self-empowerment ftw? 
> 
> *the next chapter will be the epilogue, it will be long and it will cover Vincent and Chaos/the weapons, this gnarly cliffy, etc. Closing in a house tomorrow so it will take me some time to get back to this. Am attending uni in winter semester so what time I have now I mediate. I know there isn’t much smut [see: none at all] in this but...I am really struggling to write in that area with this pairing. Have a spooky one 👻 🍁


	25. Chapter 25

“Do you think there’s a reason for it?”

Genesis startled, though briefly, as the words left his mouth to seep into the silence around him. Beside him, in a sea of green grass dotted with dumbapple trees, Sephiroth stirred. Emerald eyes blinked sleepily at him as the younger man pushed himself into a somewhat-leaning position, depositing most of his weight onto his elbows. Tilting his head, the aforementioned individual looked up at the sky. Beyond them, a little ways away, was Gillian’s-or what used to be Gillian’s-farmhouse. The little circle of cottages once-occupied by beleaguered tenants had long ago been vacated or sold and made into homes for others.

With Shikro imprisoned on-at this point-a number of charges, ownership of his estate had fallen to Genesis. Most of the ridiculously flamboyant shit in Rhapsodos Manor he’d donated or given away. The Manor itself was being converted into a community center, and the tenant residences had either-as stated before-been given over with full ownership to those residing, or were put on the market. Said presence in the marketplace came with the requirement that buyers would use the land for agricultural reasons. Tax-free and with zero cost of purchase; new residents were only asked to use green farming methods, and to donate anything that they couldn’t use.

Zack and Aerith had bought up Gillian’s cottage and the farmland designated to the homestead around it. It was, perhaps obviously, the land they were currently lounging about on. The cottage itself had been repurposed, though not heavily. The newly-married couple divided their time between Midgar and Banora respectively, with no real schedule. Most of it was Aerith’s idea, from what Genesis could recall. The terminology of ‘farming’ was somewhat loose in their case, and had more to do with geological research than anything. He didn’t pay much attention to it, his duties lay elsewhere and seeing Aerith was enough. With Hojo dead, his only objective at the time had been to slow down. The wedding between his sister and Angeal’s former protegee was small but quaint, and the niceties in it meant very little to him save that they were both happy.

Cleaning up Hojo’s mess...the one he’d left behind, took longer than he’d have liked it to. Deepground was eventually fully filled with earth, its structures and technologies entirely disassembled. There were no survivors of the Project, so they had no need to look for room and board for displaced recruits. The facility under Shinra Manor was similarly filled, and this time he took much more care in ensuring that it was wiped off the map entirely. Whatever information remained in regards to the mad scientist and his endeavors was destroyed or archived. This he was somewhat conflicted with because he genuinely believed that the mistakes of those gone before shouldn’t be entirely eradicated so that people could learn from them. At the same time, he didn’t want any up-and-coming supervillain to get any ideas. In the end, Tseng came up with the idea of developing a Historical Committee. What exactly a Historical Committee entailed was a bit above him, but the events during Shinra’s reign were recorded and the public was given access, though without scientific or technological data. The _manner_ of it all was immortalized, but the _means_ was disposed of.

The matter of Vincent being a Weapon was more difficult.

Not too much more difficult, because they had Lucrecia who at least had some know-how regarding the process she had put Vincent through when it came to Chaos. Reversing it was more difficult, much more difficult, but she insisted it wasn’t impossible. This, however, had not occurred yet, and there were larger issues-like Lucrecia being alive _at all_ -to address beforehand. In the chaos that was their return to Midgar, the fact that Vincent was the only one that was still stuck as an immortal didn’t particularly cross his mind. No one particularly had a good explanation for Lucrecia’s return...but then again, they didn’t have a particularly good one for Sephiroth’s, save that Jenova _needed_ him dead in the present. Lucrecia didn’t serve the same use that Sephiroth did, they could really only speculate that she had somehow absorbed some of the cells during her son’s gestation and that Jenova had resurrected her as well with the anticipation of killing them both...but there was no way to ask her and it was sure as shit that nobody wanted to. It explained why Lucrecia was able to communicate with Sephiroth...and to some degree, Genesis...though Genesis had never fallen victim to the hive mind.

They had very little time to determine the truth of Sephiroth’s parentage, but determine it they did. It was a Friday, if he remembered it correctly. Genesis and the younger man were visiting HQ for legal reasons and had run into Lucrecia and Vincent. It was awkward. _Painfully_ awkward so when Tseng pulled the redhead aside and handed him some papers without a word he was relieved because it gave him a break from the tension. If he’d said anything prior, he’d not have looked at them...but he didn’t, so when Genesis saw what the papers said, and understood what it meant, he just blurted it out.

_“Lucrecia is your mother Seph”_ he’d breathed, the paper trembling in his hands. Staring at the gunslinger next to the woman who had delivered so little, and yet, in question of the man beside him, at the same time so much, he exhaled shakily. _“And he **is** your father.”_

There were several...long and drawn out moments of stupefied shock before the reality of things set in. Sephiroth’s expression-of course-bled into instantaneous blankness, even while his biological mother looked panicked and Vincent looked like he’d been run over by a tank.

_“I don’t expect forgiveness”_ Lucrecia finally said numbly even as Vincent stared at her with eyes so conflicted they seemed to be screaming. _“I don’t ask for it. I forfeited your forgiveness the minute I left you.”_

_“But you will have it.”_

Genesis had looked at the younger man incredulously and that incredulity only mounted when he saw a smile, though a somewhat sad one, gracing those lips.

_“I know what it’s like to be faced with an impossible choice”_ the former General had continued. _“I also know what it’s like to make a choice that, no matter what you do, will never be the right one because there is no right choice, ultimately.”_ A hand clutched his even as Sephiroth drew the older man near, as he raised his other palm to cup his single one so he could hold it close to his chest. With emerald eyes affixed to his, he continued speaking. _“I also know what it’s like to be forgiven despite the fact that there was nothing I did to deserve it.”_

_“I never said I forgave you”_ Genesis croaked even as his cold dead heart felt strangely squishy and soft in a very scary way. Sephiroth’s face going at once horrified and embarrassed by the statement only serves to make it mushier. _“But-“_ the redhead muttered even as the silver-haired former first opened his mouth-presumably to apologize profusely- _“-For some reason, I did.”_ Lifting his free hand to scrub in an affectionate-rough manner through moonlight-colored locks, he smirked ruefully. _“That doesn’t mean I haven’t learned to tell you to fuck off though.”_

Sephiroth’s expression grew wry.

_“Genesis”_ he’d said blandly. _“You have never struggled to tell me to ‘fuck-off’.”_

_“Oh, I have”_ the redhead scoffed. _“Just in areas that really mattered, and not the petty, dumb areas that didn’t mean shit.”_ Sobering he’d looked down between them at the floor. _“My worst mistake”_ he forced out. _“Maybe all of our worst mistakes was advocating for Shinra and not advocating for one another.”_ Closing his eyes, he’d shook his head. _“Gaia, Seph, I don’t know. When you’ve been in the game long enough, the corporate game, or maybe just the game of creating jack for the sake of saying nothing but ’bad shit happens and things turn out okay but not great’ you can get addicted to mediocrity. To resignation and a permanent affect of damage. I don’t want to live like that anymore, pushing that horrible narrative onto people-like Saoirse-who might take it seriously because they don’t know any better.”_

_“Generally, most people know better, or have caretakers that know better”_ Sephiroth said wryly.

“ _Yeah, but I didn’t. You didn’t. I’d wager there are a lot of people in the Soldier program that didn’t. At some point...we just gave up.”_ He’d laughed and it was bitter. _“And the shit part is that Soldier taught us about honor, valor, all that bull...when in reality we were doing and existing as the exact opposite. We weren’t teaching people how to fight, we were teaching them how to die.”_ A jerk of his head, at Lucrecia. _“So I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it….”_

Then there was, of course, the trial.

Saying that it was an easy and smooth process would have been an outright and disgusting lie. In truth, Sephiroth was imprisoned for a time and while Genesis was _very_ against the concept, he also understood the concept of justice and due process. Just because the man he loved was...well, _the man he loved_ didn’t mean he got a free pass beyond the scope of the rest of Midgar’s population. HQ was guilty for what they’d done to their recruits, but the people weren’t, and saying that they were somehow guilty by proxy was an ethical stretch beyond the limits of lawfulness. The riots, of course, were illegal. When it was made clear that the man who had destroyed part of Midgar was indeed alive and would remain alive, the upheaval was so great there were times when Genesis genuinely didn’t think they’d be able to come back from it. With summer bleeding into fall, Saoirse had to attend school at home because the level of vitriol ferried her way merely for being related to the former General was so intense he was certain it would devolve into violence.

Explaining lack of culpability due to mental manipulation by an extraterrestrial force was difficult. It was especially difficult when Sephiroth could to some degree admit that the urge for destruction he possessed wasn’t entirely due to Jenova...more Jenova feeding the deep-seated societal resentments he had always possessed and encouraging him to act upon them. A younger, more anarchistic version of Genesis might have considered the torture his partner had gone through enough to exonerate him. He knew now that making excuses based on past trauma was not only baseless, it left the door open for worse...and _worse_. And he _wanted_ to fight for Sephiroth baselessly; the urge was almost knee-jerk, it was automatic and it was honest...but it was also wrong. And fuck if he’d become some sort of sociopolitical pansy, but he knew that nobody fixed trauma by causing more trauma and then excusing it. Because then, as he would put it, _any shithead could do anything and blame it on anyone._

Coercion was the only truth they had.

It was, therefore, fortunate that it worked in court. Jenova had played on and exacerbated not only Sephiroth’s resentments but his fears. She had held his daughter and his partner over him in order to gain his obedience, and it was that one thing that spared the former General life in prison. Seven months post incarceration, the silver-haired ex-First was freed but under heavy therapeutic monitoring. Genesis himself was ordered the same, and while he _hated_ the concept of therapy, he hated the alternative more. It was work, it was _hard_ work, but it was work that was worth it. It was worth it to come home and see Saoirse and Sephiroth sitting at the kitchen island talking about school, it was worth it to see Angeal find a new girlfriend...and to see Willow find someone else as well. It was worth it to see Gillian nag his childhood friend regarding when she was going to get a grandchild, and it was worth it to see Vincent and Lucrecia awkwardly and horribly dance around each other like lovestruck and terrified teenagers. Lucrecia had her time in court as well, but that wasn’t something he had actively followed. Her relationship with Sephiroth was more cordial than it was friendly or affectionate, much like Vincent’s relationship with Sephiroth, but only time would tell where that went.

Saoirse was slow to warm to Sephiroth.

She wasn’t frigid; there were times when Genesis questioned whether his daughter had a frigid bone in her body, but that didn’t change the fact that she was conflicted. With Sephiroth incarcerated for as long as he was...that conflict was only given time to grow, and when he was released he didn’t live with them immediately. Instead, he lived a bit across Midgar in an apartment on his own. This worked for Genesis as well, because he really didn’t-at the time-know what he wanted to do. The silver-haired man eventually found a job as an operations research analyst. It was-frankly-the most boring and brain-meltingly complex shit he had ever heard of, but the former General seemed to like it and it didn’t come with the risk of getting shot or killed, so he couldn’t really complain. His own job was more or less less demanding with the apprehension of Hojo, and when he travelled for work he felt safer leaving Midgar than he had in years. In days to come, Saoirse would go and stay with Sephiroth, or Sephiroth would come to their apartment and stay with her. Cohabitation was a subject that had come up, but they both felt that they weren’t ready for it. They went on dates, and it was _great_ and somewhat bittersweet to date openly-even if people glared at them-without worrying about getting swarmed with paparazzi or restricted by Shinra. Sometimes they had family outings, which were as awkward as they were enjoyable...but it took them a long time to get there.

He was forced to come to the understanding that there was an intimacy broken between them and in them that could never be repaired. When it came to him and Sephiroth, it was an obsessive, frenetic kind of intimacy that he was eventually able to acknowledge was probably unhealthy. With Saoirse...it was more complicated, because Sephiroth had missed out on such an intrinsically important part of her life. They would never get those years back, and Saoirse was never likely to call Sephiroth her Dad. Genesis was fairly sure that it didn't hurt the younger man as much as it hurt him...and it hurt him not because it was something he felt that Sephiroth was owed, but because it was something robbed from them. He’d processed the situation enough to understand that even if he had caused Sephiroth’s death, it wasn’t necessarily his fault that he had died. At the same time, it was difficult to lay blame elsewhere...at least entirely. It was hard to accept that things had to be taken day by day...and at times it felt painfully mundane, but when he considered the opposite of mundane-which was what his life had been before-he was able to acknowledge that he preferred the sometimes-stagnant peace over ever-present chaos.

And then there was, of course, the present moment.

“I’m uncertain” was the awkward response next to him. “It feels...extraneous, to ask questions.”

The sound of a passing truck gave him pause, but when it faded into the distance Genesis shifted and refocused. It was easy to dismiss the world when one was so far away from it...but the training ingrained in him made it difficult to do so nevertheless.

“Yeah, I get that.”

“We’re going to get old,” Sephiroth remarked drily.

_“Yeah”_ Genesis huffed, a little disbelievingly. “What about it?”

Green eyes focused on him somewhat teasingly before the younger man rolled onto his side and propped himself up so he could lean over him.

“Will you be alright?” Genesis must have looked confused, because the silver-haired former first cleared his throat and then elaborated. “Do you think you can _emotionally tolerate_ getting wrinkles?”

Against his will, the former Commander laughed, but not without reaching up and pulling Sephiroth down for a kiss. When they resurfaced, he let a hand slip ‘round to thread through the yards of silver hair at the nape of the younger man’s neck.

“I think I’ll survive it,” he snorted. Sobering somewhat, he continued. “Can’t be any worse than being a slave for a military regime, can it?”

“Some might consider it being a slave to time” was the unnecessarily philosophical response. “And you won’t survive it.”

“Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be” Genesis murmured before shaking his head. “I mean if you are so fucking turnt down that you’re pissed at time you’ve got more issues than just aging, Seph. And gee, I’m gonna die of old age in a rocking chair, maybe with grandkids and the man I love next to me, that fucking sucks balls. I mean it’s not like there’s people who can’t have kids or who have died before their time.”

That Aonian nose wrinkled in affectionate disgust.

“I am not… _’turnt’_.”

The laugh that escaped him was not a little fond.

“I know” he chortled. “But you brought it up.” Adapting an expression of mock-gravity, he continued. “Gosh Seph, can you go greyer than you already are?”

“Insubordination” was the growl against the redhead’s lips before he was pulled in for a searing kiss.

“Didn't Mati mistake you for my wife? Shouldn't we get hitched?” Genesis thoughtlessly muttered even as he went in for more.

Almost instantaneously, Sephiroth’s expression went from playful to serious.

“I remember,” he said gravely. “But I didn’t know it was serious.” A grimace. "At the time...the idea somewhat appealed to me, even if I didn't voice it aloud." 

“So you _do_ want to?”

If there was ever a man put on the spot, it was Sephiroth in the face of an impending maybe-not proposal.

“I get it,” Genesis said quietly, and when Sephiroth looked horrifically apologetic, he waved a hand. “Look...when you died, I realized that that stuff...it sounds great. And, sure, I _sort of_ wanted that. When I had more energy and still believed, even a little bit, in the concept of forever.” Screwing up his face, he scrubbed a hand over his cheeks before letting both it and the other one fall onto his chest. “But nothing’s forever, yeah? So I don’t want to walk you down the aisle anymore Seph, sorry. And we’d have to fight over who wears white. Screw that. I spent a good portion of my life certain I wouldn’t see you ever again, and then I didn’t know if we would find each other again, emotionally.”

“And if we hadn’t?” Sephiroth murmured distantly. When Genesis made a questioning noise, he extrapolated. “If we hadn’t...found each other again, differently...would you have waited for me regardless?”

Taking a moment to memorize the aquiline features before him...silhouetted against the stars, the older man contemplated the question.

“Seph” he said quietly. “Both of us have put work into this...but I have Saoirse. _You_ have her now, of course, but I’m not the type to wait around. If you weren’t willing to work on this, I would have had no reason to keep any doors open. And if you had wanted to try, you’d have had to reach out. I’m done putting my neck out just so someone can lop my head off when they’ve used me up. Shikro did that to me. Hell, even Angeal did that to me, and he’s my best friend.” Sitting up, he drew his knees up to his chin and wrapped his arms around them. “So no” he said flatly. “I might have thrown a fucking fit about it, like I did in the apartment, but if I go, I’m goin’.”

There was the unspoken truth that they had more to work through.

Genesis still had bouts of resentment that made it almost impossible to look at Sephiroth. They were fewer, as time went on, but still a present truth. He felt guilty afterwards, but in those moments it was hard to look past the rage and the fear that this was all temporary...that he would lose it, or Sephiroth would decide that they weren’t worth the effort. He was afraid if they waited too long to live together again they’d never do it, but Sephiroth had pointed out that that was okay...that it wasn’t something that had to define them. He was trying very hard to accept that and feel like he wasn’t giving up the very last bit of his philandering, mischief-filled youth. And the sex was great, of course...but it was measured. Sometimes it was so gentle he wanted to scream, but that was fine. What terrified him more than the normalcy of it was his resistance towards normalcy...because it meant he wasn’t all there yet.

“Usually I’m the one thinking too hard.”

Smiling a bit wryly, Genesis turned his head from where it was resting atop his hands. Against the stars...Sephiroth was still achingly beautiful. But he’d come to understand...particularly recently, that that beauty was never something that had come from outside of him. It was in who he was...under all of it...in that secret beneath that only he was privy to. Both of them were deeply guarded individuals, even if that guardedness presented differently for each of them. And it was a little bit terrifying to dismiss that guardedness for someone other than Saoirse after such a long time...but he did it with the knowledge that his companion was doing the same. They were both taking risks, but it was an informed and unanimous risk. He wasn’t sure, if given the opportunity, if he’d have done things exactly the same if he were given the chance to do it all over again...but he could only be grateful for the present. ‘Survival’ felt like too simplistic a word for what they had gone through. There were plenty of people that survived every day...and he didn’t want to minimize that collective determination by saying that what they had gone through was somehow more dire...or more tragic. He could only see through his lens of what life had taught him….sometimes he wasn’t sure if that was enough.

“I think I’m happy,” Genesis murmured. Letting himself fall sideways, he huffed when long fingers caught his shoulders just so they could haul him up and resettle him between an arm and a side. Stretching himself out and tucking his head under Sephiroth’s chin, he blinked sleepily. “It’s a weird feeling.”

“I know that feeling.” Sephiroth’s voice was somewhat bitter. “It is strange.”

“Maybe that’s the point” the older man grumbled. “It’s all strange.”

Gently, he was jostled from his position under the younger man’s chin until he was forced to look up. When he did, those green eyes narrowed slightly...in a considerate kind of affection.

“You make things less strange” Sephiroth said awkwardly.

It was with a bittersweet kind of ache that Genesis pulled the younger man down to kiss him again. And in that kiss were unspoken things...unspoken sorrows...acknowledged yet dismissed. Because they were so near yet so far, but still together.

“I love you,” Genesis said quietly. “If there’s anything not-strange in this world...it’s that.”

“We’re a bit strange” was the unhelpful response.

The redhead snorted.

“Vincent once asked me what ‘good enough’ was” he muttered. “At the time, I didn’t know what he was talking about, I was too pissed off to really get it. But I think he was talking about generalization...and I think ‘normal’ falls under generalization too. So what the hell is normal anyway, Seph? And who cares? Do _you_ care? Because I sure as shit don’t.”

He’d meant for the statement to be dramatic, and if not dramatic, then at least somewhat pointed. So when his companion smiled fondly at him, he was a little bit outraged but not really.

“Sometimes I forget that you’re smarter than me,” Sephiroth remarked. “Don’t let me do that anymore.” When Genesis rolled his eyes he laughed, and it was still strange to hear him laugh easily. “I suppose we make our own normal.” A pause. “I love you as well…loving you is the easiest thing I’ve ever done…”

“...Loving you is normal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** The theme [my selected theme ] for Panacea, as of chapter 18, is _Trials [reimagined version]_ by Starset. _'if I go, i'm goin'_ is a nod to the song of the same name by gregory allan isakov
> 
> So that’s it. And look at that, no sex. Huh. Considering my levels of degeneracy, you’d think that’d be impossible. **I must have had a stroke or something.** I’ve worked with Gen and Seph for a while, I wanted to make it about more than that. I apologize if the lack of smut in this is disappointing. The theme to this was going to be ‘angel of small death and the codeine scene’ by hosiery [Hozier] I.e. ‘little death’, and I thought it wasn’t prudent to dedicate a mostly sexless story to a song that seems to be about busting a fat nut. 
> 
> Because then we couldn’t call it Panacea could we, it would be Panace _uhnngh_!
> 
> want to thank those of you who have followed this [and me, on my very crazy path in this fandom] to the end. I don’t deserve you, in terms of readership, but I am humbled and grateful nonetheless. Again, I’ve played the new FF game, I enjoyed it, but I ultimately didn’t find anything I’d want to take away from or embellish regarding it. A game is a game; a story is a story; this story in particular, is over. I also make a point of moving on from a fandom in a certain amount of time. FF has been a WILD ride for me lol and I stayed longer than I intended, so I will be moving on, I want to continue to grow. *if this feels abbreviated, it's because it is. There might be holes, and I did originally have bigger plans for this fic, but...I'm ready to go. That doesn't mean I appreciate this experience any less, and I am extremely, undeservedly fortunate to have readers such as you. 
> 
> It has been a joy and a privilege to write for you, thank you, and take care of yourselves
> 
> ~myriad
> 
> **some derpy notes:** I made an oopsie here and accidently thought that they'd agreed to get married. that was a screwup directly correlated with my obsession with the star wars fandom, when obi-wan asks anakin to marry him in Unconscious Design and anakin says _'I'll marry the hell out of you"_ , which sounded a lot like Gen in my head, but I don't think it was. Regardless, that's been altered. herpderp.


End file.
